American Pragmatism Is Out the Window — Stephan Richter Focuses on Our Nihilistic Blame Game

12 November 2013

Citation — to Richter’s probing article

Stephan Richter, The United States’ Self-Defeating Gotcha Culture, The Globalist (11 November 2013)

You would think that Congress’s lip-flapping clowns would eventually get tired of themselves

Being impenetrably stupid and unutterably boring every day would certainly exact an unacceptable toll on normal people.

Yet, as I write this, one of Congress’ most influential and perennial idiots is up to his nation-wrecking mischief:

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are calling on Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, to withdraw a subpoena he issued to compel U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park to testify at a Wednesday hearing before the committee on the rollout of President Obama’s health care overhaul.

Ordinarily, seeking explanations for Executive Branch incompetence would be a good thing — but

In this instance, the inestimable Representative Issa is actively (and very obviously) trying to make a bad situation worse for the American public.

The Issa-created problem has to do with the timing of his subpoena. It arguably interrupts Mr. Park’s ability to fix the ObamaCare website, before the Administration’s self-imposed 01 December 2013 deadline:

Issa subpoenaed Park last week, ordering him to testify Wednesday [tomorrow] before the Oversight Committee.

Park’s office lashed out after the subpoena was issued.

Donna Pignatelli, the assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), wrote a letter to Issa that said the agency had made numerous attempts to accommodate the chairman’s request for a briefing with Park.

“You explained that the Committee feels it has a duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch, but conspicuously absent from your letter was any statement or justification that would explain the legislative need to compel Mr. Park to appear next week as opposed to a few weeks from now.”

“OSTP is left to wonder why you would demand Mr. Park appear on November 13, knowing that doing so is more likely to hurt rather than help the goal of fixing the website as soon as possible,” she wrote.

The Obama administration is under intense pressure to fulfill its promise of fixing the broken website by the end of the month.

Think about the mechanics — “Let me insert my self-interested foot against your ability to do your job”

Here is a wrecking ball clown going after the Administration’s “fix it” guy, so that the Grand Obstructionist Party can later proclaim that Fix It failed to meet the Other Incompetent Party’s nation-assisting deadline.

If this is not an example of unethically imposed, obstructionist self-interest, I do not know what is.

Although this behavior is typical of American politics today, it represents a nasty break with the overall thrust of the past and one that is not in our future favor.

When considered, Representative Issa’s political tactics are remarkably silly

Common courtesy would have waited to issue the subpoena in December. The political gain that might accompany embarrassing the Administration would not be lost in such a short time. Especially, if the website still does not work.

Tactically speaking, Representative Issa also seems to be somewhat dunderheaded. Instead of being both civil and smart — which would gain him respect — the apparently clumsy Issa has decided to screw with Mr. Park this month, even though the Administration will thereby have an excuse for failing to meet its own deadline.

Stefan Richter commented about our new anti-pragmatic mentality

Richter, one of my favorite geopolitical commentators — due to his global perspective — wrote yesterday:

What prevails instead is the celebration of a gotcha culture that ends up hollowing out the U.S.’s erstwhile strong suit, its pragmatism.

Case in point: the current troubles of the healthcare.gov portal. Yes, it is more than a snafu. And yes, it’s quite scandalous.

But, at this point, who in the United States isn’t fully aware of the problem? What then is the point of dragging every conceivable administration official from one Congressional hearing to the next – only to be presented, almost without exception, with the same litany of questions?

[D]ay after day, an avalanche of hearings unfolds. Like Stalinist era show-trials, they go through the same obvious litany of accusations, reprimands, crass overstatements and demands of contrition.

But what’s the point of it all?

It’s not to fix things and optimize processes, as pragmatic minded people would and should do. No, it’s about acting collectively as the high priests of the blame game.

And yet, despite all the presumed political payoffs, that blame game actually yields next to no real political advantages, given the extreme short-term orientation of the American electorate.

The moral? — Republican Party-led chaos leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing of substance

Admittedly, I am not one of the President’s admirers. And I think that ObamaCare may turn out to have been a poorly thought out and unnecessarily lucrative sop to the nation’s health insurance companies.

Yet, I want any American president and the United States to succeed.

Nationally prominent Republicans seem to wish the opposite. Their mindless obstruction of virtually everything that the Administration does — with nothing substantively workable to replace it with — is spinning the United States into weakness.

Representative Issa and his mean spirited ilk, think Senator Ted Cruz, are trying to topple the Obama Administration:

(i) even if that means taking the United States with it

and

(ii) even if voters do not recall, who did what to whom at election time.

That is nihilism. It produces nothing of value and eventually destroys all.

PeteFree.com

American Pragmatism Is Out the Window — Stephan Richter Focuses on Our Nihilistic Blame Game