The lunatics are running the asylum … again.
By Pam Linn
The names given to government agencies and programs always sound reasonable but the logic of the name is usually in inverse proportion to the lunacy of the plan. But then, if their names clearly stated their purpose everyone would know immediately what the government is up to and the outcry would ring from sea to shining sea. Or so we might hope.
Last week, someone must have alerted our esteemed senators that the proposed Policy Analysis Market was not about pork belly futures. Though it did involve market strategy and futures, it was less about commodities and more about betting on the likelihood of terrorist attacks. Martha Stewart found herself in deep doo-doo for less.
By any standard, this is a really dumb idea. Promoted by Pentagon insider John Poindexter, whose last dumb idea was the Information Awareness Office, another benign title masking an insidious plot involving e-mail and other electronic surveillance on-not suspected terrorists-everybody. Suspected liberals, suspected environmental activists, suspected muckrakers who want to know where our tax dollars are really going. You, me, the mail carrier, the UPS guy and scholars reading “suspicious” books at the county library. Doesn’t the name McCarthy ring a bell anymore?
This particular loony, a former National Security Advisor, indicted-without benefit of electronic eavesdropping-for his part in the Iran Contra scandal of the Reagan administration, wormed his way back into the good graces of his party. Wasn’t he pardoned based on his testimony, which turned out to be lies? We know the Bush Administration wants to find work for all the old cronies of former Republican presidents, but this is ridiculous. Our tax dollars at work on the funny farm.
Fortunately, the terror futures plan was disavowed by the Pentagon, after some alert senators pointed out that a terrorist could bet on the probability of his own terrorist act and profit handsomely from the evil deed. Unless, of course, it was a suicide bombing, in which case the benefit would be moot.
No sooner was the plan scuttled than, according to unnamed sources close to the Pentagon, Poindexter went to work on new cockamamie plans to be administered by new offices with benign names.
Some euphemistically named agencies that may slip by unnoticed while the Congress is on summer hiatus:
€ The Tax Refund Accountability Office-Actually a plan to hire undercover agents to track how families spend their tax credit checks. Those found paying alien au pairs cash for childcare would be indicted for tax fraud and sentenced to 10 years community service at Guantanamo Bay.
€ The Office of Arms for Democratic Re-elections-Actually a plot to recall the Democratic governors of every state. Money paid by National Rifle Association lobbyists would be funneled into Republican challengers’ campaigns.
€ The Office of Faith-Based Missile Defense-Actually a means of channeling tax dollars to ministers who agree to hold services during an impending missile attack to pray the bazillion-dollar strategic defense system actually works.
€ The Office of Economic Indicator Improvement-Actually houses a special computer designed by economists and advertising executives that recrunches the numbers to make unemployment appear lower. Oops. Don’t we already have that?
What we really need is an Official Obfuscation Abatement Agency. Its motto: Just tell it like it is, preferably in words of one syllable.
The truth can’t possibly be as bad as the glossed-over glop they’re feeding us.