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by laverya 1456 days ago
> The "lifelong bureaucrats" are typically (but not always, see the CDC) policy and subject matter experts.

We really, really needed one of those groups of unelected bureaucrats to be policy and subject matter experts, and they weren't. But don't worry, all the others we haven't actually checked are!
1 comments
camgunz 1456 days ago
I'll try and read into your low-effort dismissal here a critique of my singling out the CDC and explain further:

The CDC is a relatively unique case of an institution that was really gutted by a mistake decades ago (the swine flu vaccine in the late 70s [0]) and then got some pretty bad Trump-nominated leadership [1] [2]). Elections matter, it turns out.

[0]: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/03/991570372/michael-lewis-the-p...

[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/cdc-redfield-aids-wa...

[2]: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/cdc-director-avoid...

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laverya 1455 days ago
What agency would you hold up as an example of competence, sanity and political independence, then?

The FAA's got egg on its face from the whole 737-Max situation, the FDA is approving vaccines for under-5 year olds despite no evidence of benefit (and has had a few reviewers resign in protest after the same set of vaccines were approved for other age demographics), I'd bet dollars to donuts that people are going to be mightily unhappy with the Treasury in 6 months, the DOJ has all-but-eliminated the jury trial while providing generally substandard prisons, I've heard many things about the VA but I don't recall a single positive thing, and there's a ton of things that could be said of the DEA/ATF/FBI/DHS gang but very few of them are positive.

Here's the list, by the way: https://www.usaspending.gov/agency

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camgunz 1455 days ago
Your post is a couple of pot shots at departments that do thousands of things every day and some unsubstantiated claims. Here's guest piece by those two FDA staffers who resigned explaining their disagreement with the administration [0]; the headline is "We don't need universal booster shots. We need to reach the unvaccinated." It's a pretty good piece written by people who sound--at least to me--like policy and subject matter experts. The VA is the largest socialized health care system in the world. Etc. etc.

---

I will say a couple of things to try and reach an agreement here. The first is that our gov't is pretty corrupt, even the executive branch (remember the CDC pulling down testing/masking requirements for flying around the holidays last year?) and it's pretty clear to everyone who looks at it. I'll defend the career civil servants, but the political appointees? Generally nah.

The second is that the US press is basically junk. Their incentives are so screwy that even people who want to be fair and rigorous are forced out in favor of profiteers, which creates an awful dynamic amongst viewers and readers. For example, this article is "Hillary Clinton's emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 days as policy did in 69" [1]. This one says NBC Nightly News spent 31 minutes on emails and 8 minutes on issues [2]. What were readers/viewers supposed to think? Has literally anything been covered so strenuously and consistently? It got more air time than actual terrorism.

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/29/booster-sh...

[1]: https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-elec...

[2]: https://www.mediamatters.org/nbc/study-confirms-network-even...

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