August 23, 2004

The Peter Principle

Based upon his 20 years in the Senate, it would seem that John Kerry should have been recognized as being a victim of the Peter Principle a long time ago. I suppose John Kerry's inability to manage his own campaign wouldn't worry me so much if he were an advocate of a laissez-faire approach to government. But given his proclivity for managing the economy, foreign affairs, intelligence, and well, almost everything through a highly nuanced tweaking of the knobs and levers of government, if the Peter Principle applies now, how bad might it be if he became president?

I also wonder sometimes about the value of nuance since its primary attibute when used by John Kerry seems to be to keep him from articulating exactly what it is he actually intends to do in any of these areas -- other than spouting platitudinous declarative statements promising to make anything and everything better, faster, cheaper, fairer, cleaner, lighter, greener, clearer, safer, cooler, simpler, hipper, easier, freer, happier, stronger, lower in carbs and saturated fat, less divisive, less unilateral, less dangerous, less fearful, more compassionate, more diverse, more inclusive, more tolerant, more secure, more sensible, more unified, more prosperous, more sensitive, more respected in the world, and, perhaps, most importantly, even more accesible to those who want to belly up to the plaintiff's bar.

The silver lining in any potential John Kerry presidency is that he probably will be about as effective as president as he was as candidate. Then again, I would have said the same thing about Al Gore through 9/10.

Posted by Charles Austin at August 23, 2004 06:22 PM
Comments

Thanks for the link.

The only silver lining I could see in a Kerry win would be my getting to put a "Don't Blame Me - I Voted for Bush" bumper sticker on my car.

Posted by: chris at 08:18 PM

"nuance" - the wonderful rhetorical tool enabling one to sound good and still be able to blame others when things go wrong.

Posted by: Jon at 11:53 AM