How to ruin your career

9/17/07 2:00PM EST

As I suggested last week, one good way to do this is to join the Bush administration. James Fallows has presented the dangers of such a gambit a bit more elegantly by asking this non-rhetorical question: "Who will come out looking better by virtue of his or her service in the G.W. Bush Administration. Will anyone?"

He suggests Eric Shinseki--certainly a good candidate. But by the same token, one could suggest Richard Clarke, who's also enjoyed a higher profile and increasing respect since Bush took office. What these men have in common, though, is that their improved reputations come not by virtue of their service in the administration but by their dramatic departures from it.

Comments

"Looking better" is, of course, a value judgement. I suppose a neo-con could nominate Cheney - who will live forever in the valhalla of neo-con war-forever wingnuts.

Ezra nominates: "Paul O'Neill looks pretty good." I agree, but not for his policies, but for the rapid manner he got his book out revealing the scummy insides of BushCo and the way that the Iraq war was on the table long before 9/11.

I think John Dilulio deserves consideration for revealing the exploitiveness and cynicism of the BushCo support for the so-called faith-based initiatives thing.

Verb Cleanup on Aisle 1: James Fallows has presents the dangers of such a gambit a bit more elegantly by asking this non-rhetorical question:" I think the extra 'has' needs to be dropped, or the substitution of 'has presented'. [I'm reading Steven Pinker's just released tome: The Stuff of Thought - Language as a window into human behavior. Chapter 2 (Down the Rabbit Hole) is an extensive discourse on the complexity of verb usage.]

Posted by: JimPortlandOR on September 17, 2007 02:56 PM

Both Shinseki and Clarke were holdovers from the Clinton Administration.

Posted by: Vadranor on September 18, 2007 10:03 PM

Sure. But Fallows' question allows for that.

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