"There Was No Quarterback"

[barking_iguana]

According to someone who just posted a comment at dKos, Tom Kean said 9/11 happened because "There Was No Quarterback". I imagine he meant there was no one cabinet-level position coordinating anti-terrorism.

But given the formal structure was what it was, being the quarterback was Shrub's job. Even if there had been such a position, it would have been Shrub's job to oversee.

I'm undecided on whether it's worth creating the position the Commission has been advocating for. I wonder if we had an intelligent, active President whether anyone would be calling for it's creation. But maybe we need it just because from time to time we'll elect idiots like Shrub.

I'm going off line until at least Sunday evening. If someone can post some context for Kean's remark, to show how directly it can be inferred that Shrub was the missing quarterback, I'd appreciate it.

Comments

[avram]

Jim Lehrer was having a discussion with Kean and Lee Hamilton. Here's a full transcript, from PBS. And the relevant chunk:

JIM LEHRER: All right, now, governor, this person would be a presidential appointee, a member of the Cabinet?

GOV. THOMAS KEAN: Not a member of the Cabinet. We don't recommend that.

JIM LEHRER: Why not, why not?

GOV. THOMAS KEAN: Because a Cabinet is a policy-making body. This isn't anything to do with policy. This is an operational head. It would be the quarterback. I mean, you've got a great team out there, but a team without a quarterback is not a very successful team.

JIM LEHRER: But confirmed by the Senate?

GOV. THOMAS KEAN: Confirmed by the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: And appointed by the president.

GOV. THOMAS KEAN: Appointed by the president.

JIM LEHRER: Serves for a fixed term or at the pleasure... in other words, he would just be an assistant to the president?

GOV. THOMAS KEAN: Yeah, he would serve at the pleasure of the president. He would... the other part of this-- because it's a two-part fix, and without both parts it doesn't work-- we'd not only have that quarterback, that central figure who'd be controlling the intelligence, we'd also have an intelligence center underneath in which we'd have a number of centers where information would flow in.

No quarterback

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

I'm not sanguine about "quarterback" suggestions. When someone hands off responsibility to a person like that, it usually indicates personal lack of commitment. What is needed is a change of "philosophy" in government. Then the matter of organization is mainly a matter of experimental engineering. It is unimportant, ahead of time, whether that involves a central authority or not.

Indeed, false faith in central authority is part of what has gotten us into our current mess. Paul Wolfowitz and others believed, insanely, that international terrorists must be organized by a "state sponsor," meaning an arch-villain like Saddam Hussein. "Decapitate" the central authority and the organization (supposedly) would disintegrate. In "reality," terrorists might be organized in small cells that act, to a high degree, independently of each other.

A better move would be, for instance, to re-regulate the U.S. media, forcing them to engage in free and open discourse on public affairs. This gets closer to the roots of our vulnerability, which is a psychiatric equivalent to a water supply full of cholera. The most important thing to ensure is that when terrorists strike the American people do not suffer another psycho-logical trauma. That's not a job for a department; it's a job for all responsible leaders, everywhere in the government.

A people and government not susceptible to trauma will also do a better job of stopping attacks.

Re: No quarterback

[unclejam.livejournal.com]

This would, of course, reduce the profit-extraction potential of the US media. Not that this is a bad thing, of course, but it'd certainly make it harder to do; I think sometimes that the goal of privatization is really to make constituencies for the KEEPING of privatizations.

It's kind of funny how, by the arguments of some right-wingers, government-funded media would be the shill of that government... And in practice, the BBC is, as far as I know, something like a shining beacon of How It Should Be, while the privately-held media in this country kisses government butt.

(By the way, Dvd, this is Thomas, if I did not declare myself earlier. Hi!)