Clowns in the Cockpit

American Thinker ^ | September 27, 2008 | Herbert E. Meyer

[vietvet67]

As you've probably noticed by now, the twenty-first century has gotten off to a rocky start.  In 2001, on September 11, we were attacked.  And now our country's financial system is collapsing.  This makes for two "unimaginable" events within a decade.

How could 19 hijackers succeed against the world's greatest military power?  And how could history's strongest and most productive economy seize up virtually overnight?  Of course, there are complicated and highly technical explanations for each of these disasters.  Some books have already been written about the causes of 9-11, and others are sure to come along in the years and decades ahead.  No doubt publishers are already signing contracts for books about how today's financial meltdown happened.

But if you put both "unimaginable" events together, you'll see something that the experts won't ever see -- or won't say out loud because it sounds too simplistic and unsophisticated.  Let me use an analogy to illuminate the common thread - what liberals would call the "root cause" -- that runs through both these "unimaginable" events:

Most of us fly from time to time, and the airplanes that carry us around the country, and the world, are marvelous pieces of equipment.  Today's jetliners are the products of centuries of science, technology, business acumen and financial prowess.  They are big, powerful -- and remarkably safe; the back-up systems have back-up systems.

The Pilots Pay Attention

These jetliners are also complicated pieces of equipment, which is why the pilots who fly them are not only technically competent but intellectually capable of concentrating on doing their jobs well.  These pilots aren't sitting in the cockpit working on The New York Times crossword puzzle, or playing music on their iPods, or fooling around with the flight attendants.  They are paying absolute, total attention to bringing their plane and its passengers safely to their destinations.  If they see the plane drifting just one degree off course, or if they see the oil pressure in an engine dropping even slightly, they deal swiftly and effectively with this very minor problem before it becomes a major problem -- or perhaps a problem too big to resolve without catastrophe.  It's hard work, and this is why pilots are exhausted even after an uneventful flight.

A modern country is like a jetliner.  It's the product of centuries of human development, and it's a marvelous piece of equipment.  In a sense, even the back-up systems have back-up systems.  But a modern country is also a very complicated piece of equipment.  Managing it successfully -- in other words, bringing its citizens safely into the future -- takes both technical competence and, perhaps even more important, intense concentration.  You've got to spot little problems quickly, then deal with them effectively before they become too big to deal with.

Read the U.S. constitution, and you'll see that our country's "cockpit" isn't the White House; it's Congress.  It's the Congress, not the President, which controls the money by raising taxes and enacting the federal budget.  It's the Congress that makes our laws and oversees the executive departments and agencies that implement these laws and write the regulations that support them.

My fellow Americans: We've been putting clowns in the cockpit.

I don't mean this to be rude -- and I certainly don't mean this to be partisan -- but isn't it obvious that most of the people we've elected to the House and Senate haven't got the technical knowledge and the intellectual firepower to guide our country safely through the turbulent skies?  And isn't it obvious that most of these preening buffoons spend nearly all their time lining their own pockets, showboating, raising money for their re-elections or running for higher offices -- in short, concentrating their energies and attention on everything except doing the jobs for which we've elected them?

Of course there are exceptions in both political parties.  Every so often, you're watching some television news talk show and suddenly there's a member of Congress on camera you've never heard of before who actually knows what he or she is talking about.  But the blond news anchorette with teeth like Chiclets keeps interrupting -- and by the time your spouse comes running into the room to see what you're shouting about the interview is over even before you've gotten the House or Senate member's name.  And chances are you'll never see this splendid lawmaker on television again.  There just aren't enough of these talented and dedicated lawmakers in Congress to get the job done.

We've let this go on for too long, and now we're in a real jam: Our economy is teetering on the edge of a cliff, we're in the midst of a war -- and we're relying on the people who got us into these unimaginable disasters to get us out of them. Fat chance.

A New Kind of Congress

We need to re-think the role of Congress, and fast.  Given the inherent complexity of our country, and the world's political turbulence, we've got to start electing a different kind of person to the House and Senate.  Whether we prefer candidates who are Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, independents, libertarians, or who subscribe to any other party or philosophy, we've got to be sure that these individuals have the competence to cope with the issues that confront us, and the willingness to concentrate their total attention on doing the job.  And if this leaves them with insufficient time for enriching themselves, or for raising a re-election war chest, or planning campaigns for higher office -- so be it.  Candidates who don't want the job under these conditions shouldn't be running for them.  And those who already have these jobs and don't like the new criteria should get out of the way -- or he shoved out of the way by us -- to make room for better men and women.  Our lives and our fortunes -- literally, in both cases -- depend on getting this right.

I used to be in the intelligence business, and when we sent our projections to the President we always told him whether we were "uncertain" or "reasonably certain" or "highly confident" that whatever we were projecting actually would happen.  For the first time in my life, I'm going to make a political projection in which I have total, 100-percent confidence:

If we keep putting clowns in the cockpit, at some time down the road -- two years from now, or five years, or in a decade -- there's going to be a third "unimaginable" event.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council.  He is host and producer of The Siege of Western Civilization and author of How to Analyze Information.

[kjo]

Our best chance was the “Contract With America” election in the nineties when the GOP took over both branches of Congress.....Gingrich’s revolutionaries came into Washington, and their job was to abolish the executive washroom.

Instead, they just changed the lock on the door.

[Batrachian]

Society isn't a machine. It's people, and regardless of how wonderful or complex the systems are, people will always be capable of error, inattention, corruption, laziness, stupidity, greed, and all the other failings that mind is heir to.

My point is that nothing will protect us if we lack integrity and morality and the simple ability to pay our bills on time. It's just as true for Wall Street as it is for individuals.

[bmwcyle]

They had a contract in their hand that they threw in the trash. They came in with a mission that they ignored.

[ronnie raygun]

The bulk of the Ameican people who should get involved and should vote where asleep. While the cat is away the rats play. We are to blame for not paying more attention and not getting invovled. Sarah has proved what getting involved can do, the immigration policy that was killed, proves our strength as WE THE PEOPLE, and not accepting this irresposible scam bailout proposal the rats want to push through is prime examples of the power we have as Americans. LETS US IT FROM NOW ON!

[Dr. Ursus]

The President and the Republicans didn’t bring to the problems of Fannie and Freddie to the attention of the
American people. How many people knew that Fannie and Freddie were Democratic operations and a cash cows for the
Dems? The President,Republicans and the Dems needed the cash
flow from the Wall ST. boom for their own reasons.

[Old Sarge]

“Clowns in the cockpit, Liberals to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with yooooou...”

[TalBlack]

Culture built America and Culture will bring her down. It’s not complicated. People are, have always been and will always be flawed BUT Culture makes that slight difference that forces men to rise above the shortcomings and flaws to Lead when neccessary.

I actually believe a Huey Long may be better in a position of leadership today than anyone who is there now. Today our leaders don’t seem to have a line beyond which they won’t or “can’t” back up. They seem to put immeadiate appearences TOTALLY above any other consideration.

[VOA]

“
Herbert E. Meyer served...snip...as...snip... Vice Chairman of the
CIA’s National Intelligence Council.
He is...snip...author of How to Analyze Information.
“

I’m surely a few miles below Mr. Meyer’s paygrade.
But can’t help noting the irony that he’d write a book on how to
analyze information...and was associated with an organization that
has pleny of problems analysing information!

I wouldn’t be suprised if he knocked his head against the wall trying
to get some CIA folks to listen to him.

I do give Mr. Meyer credit for restraint in not mentioning George
Tennant (sp?) as one of the “clowns in the cockpit”.

[VigilantAmerican]

“Political correctness,” that catch-phrase which sums up the Marxist police-state overwhelming our ability to discriminate between common-sense and suicide, is behind both the attacks of 9/11 and the current credit collapse.

It was political correctness that made FBI supervisors and Jamie Gorelick and Pentagon lawyers all conspire to hamstring field agents, to scuttle ‘Able Danger’ analysts, and to squelch the cacaphony of earnest sentries from acting on the looming threat of ragheads in our flight schools—all in the name of sensitivity toward swarthy suspects, and in the interest of not ‘racial profiling.’

It was also political correctness that forced banks to make decades of bad affirmative-action loans to uncreditworthy minorities, illegal aliens, and other poor people, all in the name of “equal opportunity,” “fair/affordable housing” and so on; a metasticizing malignancy of taxpayer-backed liabilities that kept growing and growing as Wall Street came up with creative Ponzi-schemes so as to spin off the risk in trillions of nebulous and untenable derivatives—only to have it all come to a crashing day of reckoning as Democrat culprits blamed free-markets and ‘de-regulation’ for their reckless financial minority-quota system.

We must as a country and a Western culture embrace a new, wholesome, honest, fair, and robust form of bigotry if our society and sovereignty are to survive and avoid more Marxist disasters of diversity and multi-cult dystopia.

[WarEagle]

Gingrich’s revolutionaries came into Washington, and their job was to abolish the executive washroom.

Gingrich wasn't the RINOs cup of tea, and they, led by Nancy Johnson and Denny Hastert, got rid of him when they lost a few seats in 1998. The RINOs wanted their comfortable Washington way of doing things back, and they got it in spades.

I don't blame Gingrich as much as I do the people who continued to reelect clowns like Johnson, Hastert, and the rest of the RINOs.

[Republic]

We need to re-think the role of Congress,...

AMEN, AMEN and AMEN!

[Thumper1960]

Republican failures brought us more clowns in the cockpit. Traitors within the so-called conservative movement, both those not conservative and those who disdain anyone not conservative enough. Both ends of the spectrum of “conservatism” have treasonous tendencies, vis a vis gaining and keeping control of the reins of political power. Gingrich couldn’t control his underlings and when push came to shove, looking in the mirror will reveal the identities of those who failed to assist him in changing the beltway culture.

[Niuhuru]

“and the simple ability to pay our bills on time”

And live within their means.

[Niuhuru]

AMEN AMEN AMEN AND KEEP PREACHING IT!

[Popman]

bump

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

If we keep putting clowns in the cockpit, at some time down the road -- two years from now, or five years, or in a decade -- there's going to be a third "unimaginable" event.

[VRWC For Truth]

Actually modern planes fly themselves. The pilot is there as emergency backup for when things go wrong. The problem with government is that it tries to fly the plane and fight the autopilot so when there is an emergency they crash the plane.

[Popman]

We need to re-think the role of Congress, and fast.

No we don't. The role of Congress is clearly spelled out in the Constitution.

Organizations are always as good or bad as the people who run them.

Microsoft 'Vista' supposedly is a piece of crap. Does Bill gates rethink the role of Microsoft and make it into a something different? No, he makes people accountable or they are replaced

Same thing with Congress, replace the assclowns with citizens who are servants of the general good and patriots

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

They had a contract in their hand that they threw in the trash. They came in with a mission that they ignored.

Contracts are meaningless with "Clowns in the Cockpit".

Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham R. San Diego