The buck no longer stops here

Has anyone noticed a massive decrease in buck services? When Harry S Truman occupied the presidency, he was known for having said, "The buck stops here." When I was in school, this statement was held up to me as a shining example of the duty of someone in power to take responsibility when things go awry, particularly if s/he is prone to taking credit when things go well.

I'm reminded of this because the current thinking on management and responsibility has shifted markedly from Mr. Truman's view. Nobody at the top is responsible for anything anymore. We're apparently more enlightened. We now know that when things go wrong, it's always someone else's fault, generally a subordinate, but sometimes it's the fault of a previous holder of the top job. Scooter Libby, a subordinate, was at fault. Previous directors of the CIA were at fault. The soldiers manning Abu Ghraib were at fault. But boy howdy, the man (or infrequently woman) at the top is responsibility-free. No generals were harmed in the investigations at Abu Ghraib. In a pinch, it's -- wait for it -- The Weather's fault. So, now we have fantastic, ever-increasing salaries at the top positions, while the responsibility is decreasing. Let's spend a little money and put buck stops back in all the plush offices of the holders of top positions in government and industry.

Senate tries to censure people who disagree with Bush

Well well, that's a nice headline. And it's true. Our taxpayer dollars are well spent on this measure in the Senate to censure MoveOn.org, who has, apparently, been telling the Senate, often and at length, that many people in the US do not like things the Bush administration has been doing.

I think this is just the beginning, an opening salvo. I predict that soon Senators will be bringing in selected pieces of their mail and introducing measures to censure particular offensive letter-writers. "This lady doesn't like my voting record on health care!" "No! Give her contact info to my staff, and we'll add the old bat to our censure-everyone-who-hurts-our-feelings measure!"

Ah, our government in action.