And the Blind Shall Lead: Iraq CPA recruits Heritage Foundation wannabees

[JHB]

More swell news getting around:

In the ongoing saga of "the adults are in charge", it turns out that the Pentagon recruited people to help rebuild Iraq, they gathered resumes that had been submitted to the Heritage Foundation and similar think tanks. The result: the tough job of resoring order, stability, and public services to a war-torn country was handed over to a bunch of arrogant, untrained young ideologues with no relevant experience except working to make * look good (and being ideologically against "public services" in the first place.)

Yeah, we wouldn't want any competent people there, would we? They might raise a beef with some of the almighty contractors. (and Heaven Forfend some lllllliiiibbbbbeeeerrrraaalll get their cooties all over *'s glorious victory)

Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48543-2004May22.html

Joe Conason at Salon:
According to a remarkable article in the Washington Post, the CPA selected a number of utterly inexperienced young conservatives to oversee critical aspects of Iraq's reconstruction. Apparently these youthful idealists were chosen solely because their résumés had been posted on the Web site of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. (Such clumsy political vetting is ironically reminiscent of the ultra-left origins of the neoconservative movement.)

The results of their excellent adventure were predictably poor, as important aspects of the struggling nation's finances were turned over to the likes of Todd Baldwin, a former legislative aide to Sen. Rick Santorum; John Hanley, an editor of the Heritage Foundation Web site; and Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Iran-Contra figure Michael Ledeen, whose résumé featured her role in founding a cooking school. Despite their obvious lack of qualifications, all were hired without so much as an interview or a background check. (The level of Ledeen's political maturity is amusingly displayed on a Christian-right Web site, which posted her gushing account of the president's Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Baghdad. Coming down from the euphoria of meeting Bush, Ledeen wrote, "Hillary Clinton is coming here tomorrow. For her sake I hope I don't see her. I might do something crazy like spit in her direction.")

Much like their more senior sponsors, the young conservatives sent to staff the CPA possessed more enthusiasm than wisdom, and more self-confidence than self-knowledge. And young and old, no matter how bad things look -- they will all tell anybody who listens that they are doing a great job.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/25/incompetence/print.html

Nick Confessore at TAPPED:
Although I've heard a lot over the transom similar to Krohn's complaint -- that the CPA was politicized to its core, more concerned with making the White House look good than anything else -- at the end of the day it's hard to come down too hard on the folks in this artice. They went to a dangerous place and worked hard for their country. That many of them had no business being there is really on the hands of those at the top who decided not to plumb the community of professional nation-builders and NGOS, because doing so might be too close to something Bill Clinton had done, and weren't those groups all run by lefties anyway? For shame. And look what the White House's short-sightedness has wrought.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/05/index.html#003052

LBN thread from Monday:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=576439

ON EDIT: added Conason excerpt & link

[nostamj]

1. the cons are always saying

that dems are so MEAN and NASTY and you NEVER hear republicans being so HARSH

Ledeen wrote, "Hillary Clinton is coming here tomorrow. For her sake I hope I don't see her. I might do something crazy like spit in her direction.")

of course, they've also selectively forgotten the entire Clinton administration. nothing HARSH MEAN or NASTY uttered then...

:crazy: