Posted on 07/30/2007 11:43:10 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
In a weekend speech to College Democrats, Senator Hillary Clinton discussed her proposal for a West Point for bureaucrats. Not only is it a silly idea on its face, but the fine print contains additional embarrassment
“I’m going to be asking a new generation to serve,” she said. “I think just like our military academies, we need to give a totally all-paid education to young men and women who will serve their country in a public-service position.”
She has introduced legislation (S. 960) to establish a United States Public Service Academy. According to the bill text, such a school is necessary because baby-boom retirements will create a shortage of trained public servants.
That point is debatable. But for the sake of argument, stipulate that the country needs more young people to study government and related fields. Senator Clinton is forgetting institutions that already offer the relevant coursework. We call them “colleges” and “universities.”
I work at such a place. Not only do I teach courses on public policy but I also help my students get internships and full-time jobs in government. And at hundreds of schools all over the country, colleagues are doing the same thing.
Senator Clinton does make one serious point. Some students forgo government work because student loan obligations prompt them to seek higher-paying jobs. But if there is a personnel problem, a better solution would consist of scholarships or other financial incentives.
Launching a new institution of higher education means huge capital expenditures, especially if it is to have a first-rate science program. And when Congress starts any new government entity, it runs the risk of creating a bureaucratic nightmare. Just think of the Department of Homeland Security.
And by the way, guess where Senator Clinton would put the new academy on the government organization chart? Yes — in the Department of Homeland Security. That’s like offering a shipbuilding course on the deck of the Titanic.
Why begin a big, risky new venture when better, cheaper alternatives are at hand? One cynical explanation is that Senator Clinton’s union patrons would not like scholarships because they sound too much like vouchers. Moreover, a new institution provides opportunities for pork and patronage.
But let’s assume idealistic motivations. Perhaps Senator Clinton really hopes that her school will truly be the equivalent of the military-service academies. Just like professional military officers, graduates of the academy would thus have a profound sense of mission and vocation.
If so, she is taking the model to preposterous lengths. The military academies forbid admission to people who are married or who have dependents. Following this template, section 7 of her bill does the same.
Think about it: Senator Clinton is proposing to discriminate against people with spouses or children. The service academies can reasonably point to the need for military discipline, but what is the rationale for applying the limitation to a civilian school? How could a champion of children and families suggest such a thing?
When I worked on Capitol Hill, I learned two lessons about legislation. First, staffers do most of the drafting, often with a tin ear for political implications. Second, lawmakers seldom read the bills, even their own. If that’s what happened here, Senator Clinton would be acting in character. She did not read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting for the Iraq war. Perhaps she’s taking to heart a line from The Simpsons movie: that voters want a leader, not a reader.
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— John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.
As sex crime fodder?? This woman is responsible for two or three dozen women being sexually assaulted and raped.
Isn’t that what a liberal arts degree trains you for?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
(girly voice)Ma’am! The cadet’s Third General Order is to Roll eyes slowly as the person interrupting your important business approaches the desk, and then point to the Take-a-number sign without uttering a word! Ma’am!
When your paradigm is that the government is the source of all prosperity, as long as the “right” people are in charge, this makes sense.
However, government bureaucrats produce NOTHING - no goods, no services - compared to the private sector.
She can call it the “Ministry of Magic” and she could be professor Umbridge.
From a hate-the-military radical feminist.
This is the perenial wusification effort of feminsts. She despises decisive action, like may lawyers she worships the process rather than the results.
Such an accademy is not about solutions it is about institutionalizing process.
If such a Wuss Academy had been around during WWII they would now be teaching how to conduct daily dealings with the Nazi Government of Europe.
to make them good little communists like she is.
Free education? In addition to great pension, job security and health care coverage? Not necessary.
Sounds like the French system to train bureaucrats....and the result was...cheese eating surrender monkeys.
It takes a village to raise a beurocrat
I've yet to meet a progressive who didn't want to be in some sort of Ruling Class. It's a disease.
My advice would be, she shouldn’t use brown shirts.
Bogus. The civil service system drives experienced employees to retire the sooner the better. But, the public school system would provide plenty of well indoctrinated replacement Confucians if it didn't drive 40% of its clientele away before graduation.
Ministry of Silly Walks?
Your paperwork is not in ordah, mon! Drop and give me fifty rubbah stamps!!
Yeah, every student will get a Hillarobotomy and will attend special courses in Pet Obedience, Sycophancy 101, Self Aggrandizement, and Spinelessness, all at taxpayer-subsidized expense. Yeeesh!
-PJ
I think the more appropriate analogy would that involved the ‘Titanic’ would have been a ‘merchant marine navigation course on the bridge of the Titanic’. Titanic was a magnificent engineering marvel, captained by glory seeking idiots.
So if these are the guys that are currently educating our ‘public servants’, and if they say Hillary’s nuts, you can just imagine...
Predict that the Shrillary Academy is just a training ground for liberal wackos on the taxpayers dime.
Hopefully, the Republicans grow a spine soon to either nip this in the bud or insist that half the professors be conservative and half liberal with a token libertarian thrown in for good measure.
Don’t forget the extremely important higher-level courses on Goldbricking and Featherbedding.
Bureaucrats aren’t trained, they’re born.
We already have at least two! The State and Justice Departments!
You are spot on!
It is eactly take from that French model.
How many Democrats are trying to immitate EU socialist insititutions?
Just as the French get serious about removing the power of the Grandes Écoles, our very own populist revolutionary arises to infect our house with that bureaucratic pox.
The model she proposes is ultra-elitist, robbing funding and opportunities from over 99% of the children in this country. Elitism at it’s absolute worst, a naked call to return to the 19th century model of WASP control over American government through Ivy Leagues, this time with the feminist, socialist, union boss, and bureaucratic Democrats elites as the ascending power block in charge of the strings of power.
It also relays the idea she doesn’t understand there will never be gatekeepers on knowledge again. Once again her belief in the superiority of her comrades and their need to control the flow of information and ideology through the veins of government and media. Sickening, but openly laughable at this point. It’s the Columbia School of Journalism model for lifer US Federal civil servants. Yeah, that’s not just a little outdated there.
Well, "Hitler Youth" has already been taken.
Actually, I misnamed the medical procedure required of enrollees, which should have been “Hillobotomy” and of course, extra credit will be given for those wishing to undergo cellulite implants.
Barney Frank can be Minister Fudge.
Hush! Do you want to be sent to the reeducation camp?
There already is a place like that. It’s called Camelot High, er ah, the Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge Massachusetts.
Funny, years ago I knew someone who went there, the daughter of a friend of mine. They have an annual dance for the students called the “Bureaucrat’s Ball,” and several of them were sitting around the table trying to think up amusing ideas to make the event fun.
I suggested that they sell their tickets in triplicate forms, so that everyone entering has to stop by each of three different desks to get their entry stamped three times. I thought it was a really cute idea.
The person I suggested it to didn’t get it, and neither did her friends. They just blinked.
ENA and politics
The main reason for entering ENA is that it has a legal quasi-monopoly on the access to some of the most prestigious positions ("Catégorie A") in the French state civil service (the École polytechnique fulfils this role for other prestigious and technical positions, while some schools like the École Nationale des Impôts allow access to very specific "Catégorie A" positions). The school was created in a move to make more rational and democratic the recruitment of personnel for various bodies of high administration. By having a system solely based on academic proficiency and competitive examinations, the reasoning went, recruitment for top positions could be made more transparent, without suspicion of political or personal preferences.[citation needed]
French law makes it relatively easy for civil servants to enter politics: civil servants who are elected or appointed to a political position do not have to resign their position in the civil service; instead, they are put in a situation of "temporary leave" known as disponibilité. If they are not re-elected or reappointed, they may ask for their reintegration into their service (see Lionel Jospin, Bruno Mégret and Philippe Séguin for examples). In addition, ENA graduates are often recruited as aides by government ministers and other politicians; this makes it easier for some of them to enter a political career. As an example, Dominique de Villepin entered politics as an appointed official, after serving as an aide to Jacques Chirac, without ever having held an elected position.
The énarques were criticized as early as the 1960s for their technocratic and arrogant ways. Young énarque Jacques Chirac was, for instance, lampooned in an album of the Asterix series. Such criticism has continued up to present times, with the énarques being accused of monopolizing positions in higher administration and politics, without having to show real efficiency. It has become a recurrent theme for many French politicians to criticize ENA, even when they are former graduate themselves.[citation needed]
John Kenneth Galbraith and Pierre Bourdieu have studied the way this school shapes French industry and politics. The key point is that these "enarques" profit from two main privileges: not only do they have a monopoly of the top administrative positions within the civil service, but also they can go into politics and industry without risk.
However, only a small proportion of "enarques" (around 10%) actually get involved in politics. Most ENA alumni hold neutral, technical positions in the French civil service.
ENA also participates in international Technical Assistance programs, funded by the EU or other donors.
Cadet Basic Training at West Point is known as “Beast Barracks.” I guess this would be called “Hildebeast Barracks.”
By: Devvy
February 18, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
In light of the hyped speculation that Hillary Rodam Clinton is seeking the presidency in 2008, I feel the American people should be reminded on a regular basis about this woman’s past. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are devout Marxists and propagators of world communism. They disguise it very well.
Please read all about the Marxist president and his Marxist wife..
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd90.htm
can anyone spell I-n-d-o-c-t-r-i-n-a-t-i-o-n.
“... we need to give a totally all-paid education to young men and women who will serve their country in a public-service position.””
Unlike the taxpayer position: grabbing your ankles.
“Senator Clinton does make one serious point. Some students forgo government work because student loan obligations prompt them to seek higher-paying jobs. But if there is a personnel problem, a better solution would consist of scholarships or other financial incentives.”
yay national review is for more bureaucrats and more tuition inflation. who needs hillary for liberal ideas when we have NR?
How about this idea. Get rid of all govt college assistance. If you are really serious about college you will get a job to help pay for it, stop maxing out your credit cards and take real classes that will help get a real job in the real world.
Just what we need...a new generation of Govt. paid do-nothings brought on socialist pablum!
We already have a (largely) privately-funded one: it's called the Kennedy School Of Government at Harvard.
This is not only a stupid idea: it's completely redundant as well.
Will they all wear brown shirts?
This is surreal.
Too late.....
Hey Hill, they already breed like rabbits.
Yeah this is what we really need. God help us.
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