Surely someone out there is good at their job. I hope this phenomenon of incredibly incompetent people running the government is only happening there. But, of course, that's probably just hoping and wishing--and, as I've heard in a song, hoping and wishing won't get anyone anywhere.

After spending an hour or so listening to former CIA director George Tenant describe how his job was pushing papers (data! it's about the data! even though we were totally wrong about the data!) and not setting policy, I realized how widespread this job suckage is.

It's not just our Attorney General, who, apparently, does nothing, reads nothing, has no idea what is happening with the people he is in charge of. His best asset is to deny knowledge of the existence of this world. And do it all with a straight face.

Tenant gave a similar performance today (and, probably throughout the week as well), saying his statement of a "slam dunk" abundance of evidence and "intelligence" in the matter of going into Iraq was wrong, but he shouldn't be blamed for going to war. Even though he said nothing to the contrary as it was going on and pretty much let the White House say what they wanted as far as what their intelligence said (although he would try to refute this, because he wrote some memos occasionally--more paper). Which is probably okay. If they were going to make stuff up anyway, they couldn't have had a better pile of crap to sift through. Considering everything called "intelligence" in the pre-war run up was wrong.

Just think about that: everything was wrong. Not just the wrong icing. It was the wrong cake. And we're arguing about staying in this war...why?

In response to the President saying in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq was looking for yellow cake (yellow cake people!) in Africa, Tenant said he didn't read or watch the speech. Because, y'know, why should he? It's not like a significant portion of the country was watching. It's not like this seems to be part of the director of the CIA's job, y'know. Apparently there was something else on TV that night.

So, okay, the worst President in history (because at least the guy who died just a few months in didn't lead us into a stupid war while he was sick), one of the most evil and conniving VPs, two horribly bad AGs, and hamstrung Secretary of States. Brownie at FEMA. Probably many more appointees we don't know about who have no idea how to do the job they've been given. This administration is, simply, not good at their respective jobs. Of course, they got a whole eight years to suck. It's not so surprising that no one involved in the administration is trying to run for President in 2008, is it?

But sucking at high level jobs isn't just the government's domain, is it?

We have business leaders (CEOs) who make massive amounts of money to, essentially, "make hard decisions." Because when you're cutting benefits and jobs and making multi-million dollar bonuses, well, you better get the really expensive Scotch.

Guys who are out for themselves, ready to mismanage a company to death and sell their stock options right before everyone finds out. I guess they aren't necessarily bad at seizing the opportunity, but as far as leading a big company, well, not so good. It's not so good when the company doesn't survive your tenure.

Now, we are all stumbling through this life, this world, as best we can. A bit of arrogance, some blind spots, the brakes don't always work. We have to deal with disappoints as well as successes. Heartbreak, lying, cheating, bad grades. Good meals, friends and high times. Coffee and cake.

A lot of times quite a few of us look at our so called "leaders" (be they government, big company CEOs or our own bosses) and think we could do just as well as them. If not better. The problem is this: we are right.

This creates a credibility gap. This creates dissent. This destroys the illusion that destiny is involved, and that some people deserve what they receive. Because if we truly could do their job just as good or better, then why don't we get those jobs? Why don't we get a couple of years (at millions a year) to suck horribly and get millions for them to fire us?

Shouldn't we all be so lucky? And then write a book about how it wasn't really our fault because the toilet wasn't working on the day in question.

We are all human, but if you talk down to me and belittle what I'm saying, then you better be right. I don't want to hear your excuses a few years later about how "mistakes were made." I don't want to hear your apologies. Because you made it quite clear when you were fucking up that you knew exactly what you were doing.

And you were really wrong.

Matt Worley also thinks it's pretty funny that Paris Hilton is going to jail.