Why The Ceo In Chief Needs An Audit

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Very interesting article about the failures of Bush Administratiion. The surprising part is that it was printed in conservative Washington Post.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...ml?nav=hptoc_eo

 

 

Why the CEO in Chief Needs an Audit

 

 

By Richard Cohen

 

Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page A23

 

 

The Bush White House is run on a business model. The president is the CEO. He delegates to others, including the vice president, who was once a CEO himself. It therefore should come as no surprise that George W. Bush, a Harvard MBA after all, is doing what other CEOs do when they get into trouble. In his case, he's "restated" his reasons for going to war.

 

Corporations do this all the time. If a profit of, say, $2.8 billion turns out to be a loss of a similar amount on account of unanticipated developments (corruption, greed, the demands of mistresses), the figure merely gets "restated." Usually no one is held responsible for this, because a billion here or a billion there can, as we know, fall through the cracks. In fact, the CEO -- having been given a bonus for such a banner year -- is then given another one for managing his company through difficult times.

 

In the same way, the president recently restated some of the reasons for invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program, which Bush told the world was being "reconstituted," may in fact not exist. The White House the other day restated its earlier insistence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the West African nation of Niger. It turned out that the supporting documents had been forged. The White House admitted that in a press release left behind after Bush had departed for Africa.

 

Similarly, the accusation that Iraq was buying high-strength aluminum tubes, which Bush said were "used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons," has to be restated. The tubes appear to have been bought for another purpose entirely and may not be high-strength after all.

 

As for the charge that Iraq was bristling with other weapons of mass destruction, none have yet been found, raising the distinct possibility that -- in an upcoming quarter -- this too will be restated and the Bush administration will take a one-time charge against future credibility.

 

In fact, should we -- the stockholders of this operation -- look back at the original business plan for the proposed Bush administration, we will find that almost everything has been restated. During the campaign, Bush said he would not go in for peacekeeping operations abroad. He appears ready to do so in Liberia. He also said he would not get engaged, as did the previous CEO, Bill Clinton, in the nitty-gritty of Middle East peace negotiation. The administration is now choosing intersections in Gaza for traffic lights.

 

Restatement follows restatement until we poor stockholders have no choice but to conclude that either the Bush administration did not know what it was talking about when it came into office or does not know what it is talking about now. Not even in corporate America can you hold two contradictory positions simultaneously. One of them, as any CEO can tell you, has to be restated.

 

The Bush administration's interim business plan called for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. On account of a botched operation in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, this now has to be restated. Similarly, the proclaimed determination to rid the world of Saddam Hussein also has not succeeded. As with bin Laden, this failure will be restated as not being all that important. You learn this sort of thing in business school.

 

In fact, the entire business plan for Iraq has to be restated. It turns out that the country simply will not govern itself, that some elements resent the U.S. occupation and that it will take more troops to administer the country than originally thought. In some way, this abject failure to plan for an occupation -- despite repeated warnings -- will have to be creatively restated. To paraphrase the president, bring on the restatement.

 

The dangers of an immense budget deficit have been restated. Rising unemployment has been restated to blame the Clinton administration. The critical importance of relations with Mexico has been restated. The evils of affirmative action were -- after the Supreme Court ruled -- restated and so, of course, were the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Now it is to rid that country of Saddam Hussein and establish the predicates for a Middle East peace. I like them both.

 

Still, all these restatements suggest a business plan that was both flawed from the start and implemented with an appalling level of incompetence. Despite that, the CEO of this mismanaged operation is not held accountable and remains popular with the shareholders. It used to be that the buck stopped with the president. To state the obvious, that's been restated.

 

 

 

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Azat]

Alpha, very interesting article. Although I hardly think that the Washington Post is a conservative newspaper. It may be more conservative then the NY Times or LA Times, but not really too conservative.

 

I found it too interesting that the announcement that they were wrong was done just after the president had left the country. I think the administration felt that the whole thing would die down by the time Bush returned and they maybe underestimated the media asking him questions about Iraq while he was in Africa.

 

I also find it very interesting how MAJORITY of talk radio(very conservative) still does not question some of these moves that he is making and it seems that most of American elderly(45+) still believe in him so much.

 

The Administration says that Osama and Saddam and his sons are not needed to be found from one side of their mouths yet with the other side they tell the CIA to put a $25 million award (15 for each son) for their capture. One gets confused what they want.

 

I feel the search for WMD will continue till the end of the elections next year.

 

The only thing that will keep Bush away from office for 4 more years would be the economy which I had really hopped that they would do a better job on, but they have not. If the economy does not recover, the markets do not get much better and the unemployment does not go down Bush may be in trouble, else he has clear sailing.

 

The other thing to be aware of is the house price boom. It seems like there are many people who are not making payments on their homes but banks are not acting on many as home prices are artificially still going up. Recently I read in the paper that the official foreclosure rate was at a 20+ year high or .7%, but my friends at Countrywide tell me that in areas like LA they are not foreclosing homes because the prices are still going up, although they are hiring MANY foreclosure experts apparently to prepare.

 

(Off Topic: in my part of Glendale the home prices have gone up an unrealistic 120% since I got my home 4.5 years ago. and Many like me could not afford the home that they live in if they were to buy it today yet there still seems to be buyers who pay close to 500K for 2Br homes and 600+ for 3 br homes. Nuts My neighbor recently sold their tiny 2Br 1Bath home for 439K in 4 days[announced it on Wednesday and had a Escrow sign on Sunday] and the home has much need for repair and is only 1200sf)