The Sergeant Major's Thoughts on That: What Part Of This Administration Do You Find Competent

For over five years now the United States has suffered under an incredibly cruel burden. That cruel burden, in a word, is incompetence. The citizens of this great nation have suffered tremendous lose of life through grotesque attacks against our nation, the consequences of a misguided war, and a series of horrendous natural disasters that have been devastating and have seemed endless; but the single greatest burden we have suffered and had to bear is that of incompetent leadership. Incompetence on the part of the nation’s leadership starting with the president and going down through and including the Senate and the Congress.

Now you might ask how it is possible that I would put incompetent leadership above this series of horrible disasters that our nation has endured. Simple, because with competent leadership, though the attacks against our nation might not have been prevented, the chances would have been much greater that they could have been prevented. As for the misguided war, it definitely could have been prevented and thousands of casualties’ spared and untold suffering avoided. With regards to all of these events including the natural disasters, competent leadership would have certainly and dramatically mitigated the results.

What makes all of this even more repugnant and sad is that our governments system of checks and balances also failed in that the leadership ranks of the Senate and the Congress were and are as void of competent leadership as is the executive branch and as a result they took no steps whatsoever to intervene and mitigate the damage that was done by the executive branch.

But the damage hasn’t and doesn’t stop with the catastrophic events mentioned above. America’s domestic and foreign policy are also in a shambles with much of the damage done and being done a direct result of the actions or lack of action on the part of incompetent leadership.

Let’s do this by the numbers beginning with domestic issues. This administration entered office with an inherited budget surplus of over $400 billion dollars and immediately began to squander it for partisan political gain. It is now at a -$300 +/- Billion. They began their incompetent leadership with the cooperation of the House and Senate leadership by initiating a series of tax cuts specifically targeted at enriching their cohort of wealthy Americas through tax cuts aimed specifically at the very wealthy.

Tax Cuts – Act I

Tax Cuts – Act II

Tax Cuts – Act III

This irresponsible action resulted in a bloated federal deficit never before recorded in American history.

Bloated Deficit Act I

Bloated Deficit Act II

They continued demonstrate their incompetence with their assault on domestic policy and insult to middle class and poor America with their education wrecking, un-funded program of “No Child Left Behind.”

Education Left behind Act I

Education Left Behind Act II

But simple domestic incompetence in leadership wasn’t enough for this administration, Senate and House. After 9/11 they had to forcefully demonstrate their complete lack of competent leadership by ignoring common sense and the advice of those who were competent by initiating a misguided and probably illegal “preemptive” war.

Iraq Intelligence Misuse Act I

Iraq

Intelligence Misuse Act II

Reasons/Lies

Iraq Invasion

Still Lying

Once they were armpit deep in this war they continued to show a complete lack of competence by failing to demonstrate leadership and if not ordering torture then silently condoning it.

Torture Act I – GITMO
Torture Act II – Abu Ghraib
Torture Act III – Abu Ghraib
Torture Act IV – Abu Ghraib

And by way of further demonstration and in order to remove any doubt as to their total lack of military competence they fail to plan the war, execute the war, and manage the occupation.

Un-Armored Humvees Act I
Un-Armored Humvees Act II
Troops Body Armor Act I
Troops Body Armor Act II – Wife Armor
Occupation Failure
Readiness Act I – Murtha’s Letter to Bush
Readiness Act II

And of course once we have botched the war we can continue to add insult to injury in the Middle East and the Muslim world in general by burnishing our Foreign Policy credentials by demonstrating our incompetence in world leadership by ignoring Israel and Palestine until it’s too late.

Election Results Not To Our Liking

But remember that no incompetent leadership is complete without a domestic disaster so horrendous that it can demonstrate incompetence squared.

Katrina Disaster Act I

Katrina Disaster Act II – Waste

Katrina Disaster Act III – Failure

So now we come to the competency score card. Let’s check those grades.

Tax Relief = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Deficit = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Education = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Disasters = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Integrity = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Foreign Policy = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F

Iraq War = Executive Branch F, Senate F, Congress F