Pueblog USa

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Some Thoughts on Cronyism

The Pot called the Kettle “black.”

Last week Hillary Clinton accused the Bush administration of “cronyism.”  Our response is so obvious that we didn’t see any point in posting at the time, but we still can’t resist. So, all together now: IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE! Seriously, the Clintons took cronyism from a mere political modus operandi to an art form: putting cronies into the White House travel office, where some people had worked for three administrations, and pardoning everyone who’d ever put a couple of bucks into the pot. Or had promised to. Did they know anyone who didn’t want a pardon?

Actually, I’ve never understood why cronyism itself is supposed to be bad. It’s only bad if you have bad cronies and if you execute it badly. First, if your cronies are crooks, cads, and amoral sycophants, cronyism is bad. Second, if you have nice cronies, but insist on giving them jobs they are not qualified for, that’s bad execution.

If, however, your cronies are respectable, well-qualified and experienced individuals with high moral standards, and if a vacancy occurs for normal reasons, i.e., for reasons other than firing someone just to create a vacancy for your crony, then I can’t say cronyism is bad. Who are you supposed to put into important advisory and administrative positions, your enemies?

I’ll use Dick Cheney as an example. Choosing him for Vice President is probably one of the few times in the last 100 years when the candidate was selected because of his ability to be the president at a moment’s notice. Certainly it wasn’t a reward for him, since he made more money and had a more comfortable life, perhaps even with more power and influence, in the private sector. Cheney is an experienced, successful executive, used to delegating, giving direction and evaluating performance.

On the other hand, many Vice Presidential candidates were selected because they were first runner-up and needed a sop to keep them from causing trouble, or because they were somebody’s crony who was being given a “tryout” as the Presidential candidate, or because they were somebody’s loyal friend who needed a nice reward and who needed to be kept out of trouble for a while. (Tom Clancy has written a series of novels where that is part of the plot line.)

Or it’s possible Hillary was projecting.