Blog For Arizona

Comptroller of Reality

U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, the nation's chief fiscal officer, interjected a dose of reality this week into President Bush's rosy claims that his Administration can cut the federal deficit in half within five years without changing policies. "The idea that this is manageable or that we are going to grow our way out of the problem is just flat false," Walker said.

Increasingly, I expect Walker's brave statement to be the norm amongst professionals in Washingtion. Honest public servants have begun to stand up and demand that the truth be known. Whether it is in the form of White House leaks, former staffers speaking out, or career professionals blowing the whistle, the curtain is coming down. The little man at the controls of the Great and Powerful WOZ is trying like heck to keep that curtain shut, but Toto is too persistent. Career civil service professionals are somewhat jaded by the half-truths and spin which infest the air like wandering clouds of sand flies in halls of DC. They are used to ignoring these distortions and getting on with the serious business of administration.

But Walker, and others like him, have realized that this is not business as usual. The lies of this Administration are so blatant that they are actually trying to poision the well of government data collection and anaylsis to cover themselves. They are working to politicize the creation of formerly objective information in order to lie more credibly. Walker is blowing the whistle because he can't tolerate the Governement being blinded to W's folly. The very systems meant to ensure that descision-making is based on reality-Treasury Department financial indicators, goverment statistics, objective scientific advisory panels, the National Academy of Sciences, foreign intelligence- are being ground out of existence, twisted, and pre-weighted so that the Bush Administration may paper over their failures with fantasies.

The sense of duty of those career professionals in our government, whom we too often dismissively call bureaucrats, is going to play a key role in Take Down 2004. The President may be the most powerful man on earth, but as the old saying goes, no man is a hero to his valet. Those faceless servants in Washington's downstairs will prove to be the Masters' undoing. The "Have Mores" hubris causes them to do their dirty work in full view of the servants and expect compliant silence. But these servants are calling the coppers and turning state's evidence.

P.S. I am still chewing on my impressions and the press coverage of the Debate in the Desert. I will post about it tomorrow for those who might be interested in a first hand account and couldn't make it to Phoenix.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 10/11/2003 12:28:00 AM