Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   What's going on here? Date:   9/24/2016 11:12:03 AM

You know Lifer, I think you have misjudged me all these years.  I was never trying to act superior about my knowledge of Washington, but to try to use my experience to explain things from my perspective.  It's a weird place and I spent a lot of my time disliking it.  I'm not a dog eat dog kind of person and I think back stabbing is a coward's tactic.  I realized that most of our elected official and their staffers have their heads up their butts, because they are so insulated from the real world. They expect their butts to be kissed.  Most of the time, things are proposed and defeated over what we called "rice bowl" issues, rather than what made the most sense.  I really did go to work for the government to support our military  and to try to do good. 

I don't know if you realize that I took an early retirement to get away from it - I was tired of having a boss that was not concerned about our people and concerned only with face time with the very seniors and social climbing with the Brits and Aussies.  I was totally disgusted about Iraq and when Doug Feith put Mike Maloof in charge of his private intell group (that would spin the intel to say what he wantd it to say).  I used to work with Mike Maloof and he was a nut case.  And then I got into an argument with a woman in the NSC staff, becasue she was more interested in letting industry sell thermal night vision everywhere, than protecting our troops.  I was just tired of the B.S.  I've been away from it for 10 years now, and it probably disgusts me more now than it did when I worked there, because I can imagine the behind the scenes manuvering.  And believe me, if the "old man" (whether that be the President, the SecState, or the SecDef), no one will ever question it, even if it is the stupidest and most fraught with pitfalls plan ever.   It's not always the government employees that are screwing up, but their political appointees that cause them to do stupid things. 

However,  agree with everyone that the VA is the worst and needs to be disassembled and re-assembled into something that works. I don't know about the other Cabinet Departments, like Engery, Labor, EPA, etc.