The Apparatchik's March

The radio correspondent William L. Shirer wrote a book titled Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, recounting the history of Nazism in Germany and detailing his own experiences in that country until his departure in 1941.

One of the items he described in his book was that the Nazis' ideological purging had resulted in many people being appointed to positions for which they were completely unsuitable. One example is a veterinarian being made the Minister of Education. In other words, they were good Party members, but they were piss-poor when it came to the business, industrial or educational posts to which they were appointed.

Fast forward a few decades.

This diary on DailyKos caught my eye (with a tip of the hat to georgia10) not because of the example of Administration misfeasance - although it's glaringly obvious - but because of the amazing historical parallel between the circumstances and Shirer's book.

Here's the original article from the Washington Post, by the way.

So we have bright young Republicans who slavishly follow everything Bush tells them to do, who probably are quite intelligent in their own milieu - but are literal fish out of water running things in Iraq. Two of these "good Party members" had NO experience in either economics or administration, yet were making decisions regarding the outlay of billions of dollars IN MY TAX MONEY.

I honestly don't think that the damage inflicted on America by this government will be erased in my lifetime.