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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Government By Competent People

Government By Competent People

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One of the things that bugged me about TFG’s interactions with other countries – I can’t call it foreign policy because there was no policy – was there was no subtlety, no pattern, nothing intellectual. There was nothing to analyze beyond “This is bad, we shouldn’t do it.”

Some tried, of course. Large numbers of reporters tried to pretend there was something strategic in Jared’s schmoozing with his bloody Saudi friend. If there was, it had to do with money for himself and his father in law.

But Joe Biden! And Antony Blinken! And Wendy Sherman! Ah, there are people who think several moves ahead. I’ve been enjoying a transcript of a briefing by a Senior Administration Official. To those of us who follow such things, it’s obviously Rob Malley, special representative to the talks with Iran.

And message discipline! Oh my, not just with regard to foreign policy, but all across the government. But the briefing transcript has it, in spades. The administration is saying nothing about the specifics of the talks. They are taking a firm line as to what the US wants out of the talks, but they are not being so specific as to trap themselves as the talks progress.

Some things are quite specific, though. Where the administration has been taciturn about the progress of the talks (We are making some progress, but we are far from a complete agreement), the Iranians have tried to project optimism and sometimes more. There was a leak about a possible prisoner exchange. Malley swats that one down, hard.

It’s a lovely study of a person who knows what he’s doing and is doing it well. I am grateful.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  1. 1.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    It is pretty great, isn’t it? I suppose it seems that leak of the Iranian foreign minister hasn’t scuttled the talks which is good news

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Large numbers of reporters tried to pretend there was something strategic in Jared’s schmoozing with his bloody Saudi friend.

    Yet more evidence that my nym is the approach to the political mainstream media, aka The Village.

    Wipe them out, all of them.

  4. 4.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    As someone with deep family connections to Bob Baffert, consider me unsurprised.

    I can summarize his lawyer-drafted statement pretty simply:

    “I didn’t do anything wrong, but even if I did, your rules for my sport are ridiculous.”

  5. 5.

    HypersphericalCow

    The sense of relief of having competent people running things is palpable.

  6. 6.

    Skepticat

    They say you often don’t appreciate what you have until you’ve lost it. I’m immeasurably grateful to have competent professionals back. We won’t agree with everything they do, but at least we can be fairly sure the reasons will be at least marginally intelligent and not only ego-, personal financial benefit-, or vindictiveness-driven.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    The first problem is the time and energy needed to undo the damage. But worse, the various bad actors figure they just need to sit tight and await The Return.

  8. 8.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m wondering what is going to happen with Russia, just in terms of the visa situation. I would like to see it be possible for ordinary Russians to visit here again, but the US embassy seems to be operating on a skeleton crew, and no visas are being processed at all. I realize that because of Covid this is kind of moot right now, but i’m confused about how much is about us punishing them and how much is about them punishing us, and normal people getting stuck in the middle.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    One of the things that bugged me about TFG’s interactions with other countries – I can’t call it foreign policy because there was no policy – was there was no subtlety, no pattern, nothing intellectual.

    Yup.  Out of the constellation of things wrong with this guy in that office was that he was and is just a complete moron.

    I’m not discounting his many, many other flaws.  I’m just saying that when it comes to being President of the United States, being dumber than an empty carton of trump steaks is a bad idea.

  13. 13.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @zhena gogolia: What will happen with Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. There is so much going on between us and them. Biden has a summit coming up with Putin in June. Then there’s all the hacking and other irritants like Russian planes flying to close to others’ airspace. And then there’s the whole question of the 2016 election, which may be coming back alive as the Department of Justice cleans up Bill Barr’s coverups.

    And, as you say, covid is part of the practical problem you’re looking at.

    Magic Eight Ball says things will be confused for a while.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    At that, what TFG means by being treated fairly isn’t actually being treated fairly; what he really wants is to be treated better than everybody else, to be flattered and toadied to.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    I take it Biden and Blinken won’t be sharing glowing orbs with foreign leaders anytime soon?

  18. 18.

    Lum's Better Half

    This time, for sure, the Iranians will surrender unconditionally.

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    Government By Competent People

    So refreshing after the past four years of a criminal cabal of idiots and assholes doing everything they could to destroy the government.

    And this administration isn’t just competent, they actually want to help people!

    Thanks again to the 81 million+ voters who picked Biden/Harris!

  21. 21.

    Uncle Omar

    TFG’s immigration and foreign “policies” came directly from the May, 1976, issue of The National Lampoon, as did his view of non-WASP Americans.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    This is all well and good. But the rest of the world is much more wary of us now, especially our allies. There are no guarantees that we won’t re-elect him or elect someone even worse. And the way our system works we can’t make any promises there. I don’t have a solution to that (yet) but without some way of assuring our allies we’re really back supporting them Biden’s work here might be an illusion.

    I know this much: we need to replenish the staff of Foggy Bottom with good competent career staffers. I think maybe the unions there could use some beefing up. I know we can’t control the White House all the time but maybe getting career staff who have the confidence to push back will help.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for the pointer. It is indeed great to see competent people doing their jobs, and explaining their positions for all of us to see.

    The government is in good hands.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    Philbert

    @Yutsano: Agree completley. The Biden administration is a huge relief, but we can’t relax again ever. Complacency got us here. With the GOP rigging the system, Biden may just be a finger in the dike. He is enough of a pro that we can hope he is doing much of the needed deep fight quietly.

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Oh, that is a flashback I really didn’t need! That happened early on, didn’t it? And I saw this horrific future unfolding.

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    I’m almost finished with a quick read called “Goodbye Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump“. It’s basically a day-by-day review of all of the horrors of 2020 and the mind-boggling incompetence and stupidity of the Orange Clown’s final year. Republicans could have done something about his high crimes and all-around degeneracy, but they neglected to do much of anything. With the exceptions of Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, they’re just a bunch of seditious shitheads.

  36. 36.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Oh, Sun Pony help us. Elon Musk, in a self-congratulating brain fart driven by belief in his own genius, has pressured SpaceX into accepting a 40 million dollar payment in cryptocurrency. I really, really hope they unload it fast, because there are rumblings that the entire cryptocurrency sector is about to discover their biggest guarantor of converting crypto to real money… has no real money. I really don’t want Musk’s ego-driven whims to destroy a successful space company.I only learned yesterday that he didn’t found Tesla, he bought Tesla and made his job title ‘Founder’, which is fucked up, petty, jackass, and pathetic in its neediness.
    @?BillinGlendaleCA: ​

    “you will treat me fairly or else”

    To enter into that discussion, that’s ‘fairly’ by the definition of a malignant narcissist. Everyone here has made valuable contributions to explaining how that works. I would suggest they are outgrowths of the basic narcissist principle that fairness = the narcissist getting what they personally want. Anything else is persecution and cheating, often leading to bizarre justifications like it being unconstitutional to make them wear a mask.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    Great post! I definitely agree with this observation.

    One of the things that bugged me about TFG’s interactions with other countries – I can’t call it foreign policy because there was no policy – was there was no subtlety, no pattern, nothing intellectual. There was nothing to analyze beyond “This is bad, we shouldn’t do it.”

    Trump’s foreign policy, like every other aspect of his presidency, was founded in his ignorance and his resentments. The only benefit of his “Foreign Policy For Dummies” approach was that it was easily understood by his base. With most countries it was always “you’ve been cheating America and I am here to get what’s due us.” In the Middle East it was promises of unspecified magic that would make Israel great. And of course there were his various “Dictator Love Connection” summits with the autocrats that made him weak in the knees.

    By contrast, I have great confidence in what the Biden team may accomplish, even though the headlines may be less splashy.

  38. 38.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I’ve always been shocked Bitcoin has lasted as long as it has. I don’t get the appeal. Musk built up Dogecoin, a meme cryptocurrency, by calling himself the “Dodgefather” in a promo and singlehandedly destroyed it last night during his hosting of SNL

  41. 41.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I don’t get the appeal.

    I will try to explain.  It boils down to ‘snake oil’, ‘beanie babies’, and ‘money laundering’.  There are a lot of people who will flock to a sufficiently Science sounding fad.  Radium in the early 1900s being a fine example.  Cryptocurrency is a pyramid scam and a speculative asset by nature.  It keeps inflating because suckers are convinced to put money into it, while a few people siphon off profit.  There’s a huge ‘sunk costs’ thing because nobody wants to admit it’s a bubble and their cryptocurrency is only worth a fantastic amount as long as they don’t try to cash it in.  There is just enough room for actual cashing out that it can be used for international money laundering, especially in the drug trade.  Put it all together, and you have an illusion of value that keeps growing.  That illusion sucks in yet more people, holding off the day when it collapses and ruins everyone involved.

  43. 43.

    Cameron

    OMG!  Multiple shootings!  I’d better start turning the crank on my Thoughtsnprayers box a lot faster!

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    I take it Biden and Blinken won’t be sharing glowing orbs with foreign leaders anytime soon?

    Biden and Blinken. Now, if they can just add a Nod to the team….

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @rikyrah

    The wily Chinese made sure it fell while it was Saturday in the U.S., the day the Jewish space lasers are non-operational.

    //

  49. 49.

    Emma from Miami

    @Other MJS: ​
      And the rest of us will cower under his dreadful god-like glaze and kneel in front of his might? Because we are such cowards that we won’t fight for our country?

  50. 50.

    Nobody in particular

    Here’s the link you requested, Cheryl.

    Would it hurt to say “please,” next time? It would be much appreciated.

    cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm

    During the AIDS crisis the CDC, Fauci, and other experts never told people that oral sex wasn’t a real risk, even though they soon knew it was not.
    Why?
    People are natural risk-takers. Some drinks and some coke or meth… Boom! If that virus couldn’t get straight into your bloodstream it was probably dead in under a minute. Killed by saliva. I’d wager if I made that assertion here in 1985, everyone would argue with me: “That’s not what Public Health officials are saying!”

    To my mind, the quibble over “immunity” is another example of semantic drift. Perhaps I’m a foolish literalist, also. Immunity means one thing to me. And I’ll quibble over precision in the language and meaning with anyone. Forever.

    Do you have any idea how crazymaking it is for me to hear BIG GUMMINT or Small Gummint?
    A good friend is a Ph. D. and teaches Poli Sci and I’ve heard her say it, because it may get college freshmen’s “limited” attention. She allows me to sit in at times and see what’s going on with the kids.
    I have I’ve never seen the Framers use those terms. Just “limited.” The Framers knew better than to instantiate an abstract concept with size, mass, weight, volume, or color.
    cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-transmission/ways-people-get-hiv.html

    You never could have acquired HIV through oral sex, unless you had bleeding gums or possibly Esophageal varices.
    It would never make it to your belly. Saliva kills it and your stomach’s gastric juices were doom for certain.

    This is an issue of effective PH protocol with respect to the dissemination of complex information to a simple public with little or no understanding of the subject. I maintain it is unnecessarily risky to instill a feeling of false invincibility in this public. Like Ripley, I feel IQs have dropped sharply since the 1980s.

    The technical writers and the research scientists that came up with these terms before the Public Health guys looked at it were not thinking clearly. It’s too much information and not essential for the public to try and navigate. Active and Passive Immunity. And let’s not forget who came up with the publications in the last 5 years.

    I maintain It could lead to serious trouble at some point to use these classifications of immunity with this public. They should fear it. We’ll split the difference and argue about the semantics. Specific, not General. Literalists can debate whether or not we are both right.

  52. 52.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Yeah, that about sums up cryptocurrencies: good for money laundering, essentially worthless, and only propped up by idiots falling for the scheme.

  54. 54.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Yutsano:

    Oh God dammit. And the fucking SCOTUS is taking on a 2nd amendment case. Fuck the Conservative Six too

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Emma from Miami:

    And the rest of us will cower under his dreadful god-like glaze and kneel in front of his might? Because we are such cowards that we won’t fight for our country? 

    Reminds me that Ormarasa(not looking up the right spelling) still needs a hard slap on the mouth for her “Everyone will bow down to Dump” bullshit from five years ago.

  57. 57.

    Chetan Murthy

    @J R in WV:  @Nobody in particular:  Oh, Idunno, I found it pretty educational.  I thought it was pretty iillustrative of two things:

    1. The difference between various medical specialties (like virology, or infectious disease) and public health.  That is to say, public health is not just about the actual infection, but also about the public, the health system, etc.  An example from this pandemic: that the first job is to keep the health care system functional, b/c if it falls down, then many who could be treated will die.  As we’re seeing in India right now.
    2. that people are not rational, and public health has to take that into account.  You cant’ give them “all the facts” b/c they literally aren’t capable of comprehending them.

    I did appreciate it, NiP.

  58. 58.

    Brachiator

    @Yutsano:

    This is all well and good. But the rest of the world is much more wary of us now, especially our allies. There are no guarantees that we won’t re-elect him or elect someone even worse.

    This is just the way the world is now, and there is also no guarantee that our allies, or even opponents, will have stable governments.

    But our main allies have welcomed the new administration with expressions of relief and goodwill.  That in itself is a huge vote of confidence.

  59. 59.

    craigie

    One of the things that bugged me about TFG’s interactions with other countries – I can’t call it foreign policy because there was no policy – was there was no subtlety, no pattern, nothing intellectual.

    I really believe that to the MAGAts this was a feature, not a bug. Actually knowing anything about anything is elitist, doncha ya know – you should just do everything from your gut. It’s a government version of “Can’t they just…?”​

  60. 60.

    dww44

    On my local PBS the 2nd episode of the documentary The Rise of the Nazis just started at 8.  The similarities to Trumpism  are eerily prescient..   Get all your not already totally down the rabbit hole Trumpists to tune in.

  61. 61.

    FelonyGovt

    I’m glad to see your take on this, Cheryl, because it has seemed to me that the Biden Administration has taken a mostly professional, measured approach to things, but it’s nice to see it confirmed by someone who knows what she’s talking about.

    And I sure hope SpaceX doesn’t go under because Musk is unhinged. Its headquarters is right near me and it’s a significant source of jobs around here.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I only learned yesterday that he didn’t found Tesla

    Yeah, that history has slowly been elided over the years.

    The founders did a great job making an amazing performance car with a Lotus body. They spent a lot of time trying to develop a two-speed transmission for it, because they promised one and assumed it was eventually essential. Trouble is, of course, electric motors have their full torque from 0 rpm so the transmissions kept breaking. AFAIK, almost nobody (with one notable exception) has a transmission in their electric cars, even today.

    It’s not uncommon for inventors to hit a wall trying to go from niche production to something bigger. People who can come in and make the transition are important, but the guys who actually had the vision and made the first cars happen shouldn’t be forgotten.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    zhena gogolia

    I hate the Republicans so much. Today they’re making a big deal out of “birthing people.” I just got the message from Cori Bush’s office, and “birthing people” comes after “mother, moms, and.” They don’t get rid of the word “mother” at all.

    These people just can’t stand compassion and sympathy. They just can’t stand it. The fact that they call themselves Christian makes me ashamed.

  65. 65.

    Mike in NC

    According to the book I just finished, the Orange Clown once said “I don’t want black people building Trump Tower”.

  69. 69.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Cheryl Rofer: Just to be perfectly clear, the link agrees with me, not Nobody in Particular:

    Active immunity results when exposure to a disease organism triggers the immune system to produce antibodies to that disease. Exposure to the disease organism can occur through infection with the actual disease (resulting in natural immunity), or introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination (vaccine-induced immunity). Either way, if an immune person comes into contact with that disease in the future, their immune system will recognize it and immediately produce the antibodies needed to fight it.

  70. 70.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Chetan Murthy: ANYONE who traffics in trying to say people got stupid at X point in history, is someone you need to side eye, at a damn minimum.

    IQ — meant literally or otherwise from “I’ll quibble over precision in the language” person here — is not a tool for understanding how Humanity works in groups. As I just ran into, there are millions of people with high IQs, with massive amounts of pattern recognition, knowledge absorption, and many other traits, who use them in ways that are not helpful in these situations.

    They aren’t stupid. They are, however, using flawed reasoning that oft comes from peer pressure and other “in-group” drives. The entire set of modern GOP behaviors comes from centuries of people on the American Continent leveraging in-groups — especially but not solely Race — to compel behaviors and ways of thinking, either organically or via desires for power and relevance.

    (Seriously — as I’ve pointed out before, I worked in the Lion’s Den of the Senate Office of Strom Thurmond, as an Office Page in the 80s. I can say a lot of things about the people and their moral fiber, but stupid isn’t close to one of them, and I’ve carried that around all my life.)

  71. 71.

    Bill Arnold

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    That page also goes back to at least 2007 (the 2007 paragraph looks the same):
    web.archive.org/web/20071101040244/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm
    Obviously it doesn’t cover mRNA vaccines; it might predate deployed viral vector vaccines; not sure though. (ETA: I am agreeing with you, just more details.)

    The wikipedia page on vaccines, specifically on vaccine types, is surprisingly detailed, with lots of links and refs. (I learned quite a bit from it just now.)
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine

    also (pnas):
    History of vaccination (2014)

  72. 72.

    Cameron

    @Cheryl Rofer: I’m sorry – what am I missing here?  I thought this post at least started with the current administration’s competence or lack thereof in foreign affairs.  What rabbithole have NIP and you wandered down?  Are NIP’s post and your response picking up something from another thread? (Not that it really matters, I guess – this is a pretty freewheeling blog.)

  73. 73.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I’m invested in those cool coupons being marketed by Charlie Ponzi.  Of course I diversify and balance my portfolio with tulips futures and high yield credit default swaps.

  74. 74.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Cameron: NIP made a misstatement about immunity in the previous thread. I called them on it and asked for a link to support what they said. They supplied a link in this thread that, in fact, supports me rather than them.

    I think we have acquired a troll. The pie filter is a good way to avoid this.

  75. 75.

    Cameron

    @Cheryl Rofer: Strange.  NIP and I appear to share a taste for Georgism (which I’ve only found in a handful of people), although apparently coming from different directions.  “The Internet is a Frightful Beast,” no?

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @Woodrow/asim: People here frequently speak of someone who is wrong on a political issue as “stupid.” But often these opponents are wrong not because they are stupid but because they lack empathy and good sense, both of which seem to be distributed among the population independently of IQ.

    Why this tendency of people to call their opponents stupid? One hypothesis: we are profoundly conditioned by our system of schooling, success in which can often determine one’s success in life. And in schooling generally, if you you are smart you are right. Hard work surely helps, but that and other character strengths come into play more after schooling ends.

    But while we often conflate schooling with education, schooling is really only one part of education in life, maybe even the lesser part. I think of the people who comment in this forum as a well-educated group, not because there might be a high level of formal schooling present, but because of what they have experienced in their work and personal lives, and how they have learned from that experience. And while brilliant intelligence can make for some interesting reading, people expressing empathy and good sense seem to me to make the most valuable contributions.

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