The perils of social promotion

Is there still anyone outside the Old Boy Network who really believes that loyalty trumps competence? that connections trump qualifications?

There's a concept in eduction called 'social promotion'. Say a grade-schooler is not doing well in math, or reading. Do you hold the kid back a grade so they can master the material before going on to harder subjects? Or promote them with their peers and hope they can catch up? Many feel (or used to feel?) that because children's intellects mature at different rates, it's more important to keep pushing them along with their peers, rather than leaving them behind to have to re-establish themselves in a new group, and suffer all the attendant stigma of having 'failed' a grade.

Well, when you take that concept out of the educational system and into the working world, you get cronyism. And the disaster that is New Orleans can be a direct result.

Bush is the most visible example of social promotion. Friends of his father's and the family carved harmless niche jobs out for the lackluster son of privilege throughout his adulthood. This board of directors and that oil company all found well-paid sinecures for the Bush Family name. With no discernable skills, he was socially promoted into fronting for the cabal that ran him for President and now run the country.

Given his professional background, can you really expect him to select competent subordinates to run the country? Chertoff, now head of the badly misnamed Department of Homeland Security, was, in the immortal words of blogger Athena at the Cluefactory, "the chief legal crotch-sniffer for the Great Congressional Get-Clinton Witchhunt". The head of what used to be FEMA but is now part of DHS, was fired from his job as legal counsel for an organization that ran horse shows. For incompetence. He can't run legal affairs for horse shows, yet is now in charge of emergency management for the nation. How did he get the job? He was hired by his college roommate, who was hired because he was a political crony of the boy-emperor's from Texas.

I reiterate what I've said before: This isn't a job for a C-Student!