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Influenced by the "Fired Attorney" debate I formalized some of my thinking on political thoughts in what I call the "TACI" formula--Pronounced Tacky, for obvious reasons.
Whenever a decision is made every politician does a TACI check.
TACI stands for Traceable, Appearance, Criminal and Immoral check. Each is a spectrum from say, 1 to 100. The higher the number the worse the decision is.
Traceable--how likely this action can be tracked back to the politician.
Appearance--how bad would this appear to the public, or to a specific important audience.
Criminal--how much of a crime is this.
Immorality--how evil is this deed. 0 here does not represent a neutral act, but a good or moral one. 50 would be neutral.
So lets take a look at the firing of the federal attorneys as it appeared six months ago.
Traceable--about 50. Sure there are records, but the odds of it being something important enough to pay for the search time is small.
Appearance--80. It could be spun as if the Admin is creating their own thought police, or that they are putting the Politics in Police. Justice is expected to be impartial by the public. Besides, on the same days that the President is talking bipartisanship, firing people for not being partisan enough just looks bad.
Criminal--0. Hey, its completely legal. While some may cry about "Obstruction of Justice" there is nor crime being committed.
Immorality-- 20-60 depending on your position. The administration greatly appreciates the virtue of loyalty, so they saw this as a 20--doing more good than bad by putting more loyal people in charge.
Overall, this is a good plan. The only problem is the high "Appearance" number. To combat that, they throw up two smoke screens.
1)--Bad efficiency reviews. They review all the attorneys, and give bad marks to those who they deem are not "loyal" enough. If any complaints are raised, they can use these bad reviews to make it Appear to be a better decision.
T--70. There is now a paper trail of the bad reviews, and highly qualified and hard working people who get bad reviews that effect their chances for future employment are more likely to push to find out why.
A--60. While the bad reviews make the firings Appear more justifiable, giving a bad review undeservedly appears to be mean and dirty. Too many people have had that happen in their own lives, and can identify with the fired lawyers.
C--0
I--70 ruining the careers of 8 lawyers for purely political reasons, and then calling them unqualified or sloppy is wrong.
2--Mr. Gonzales either lied, or misinformed congress about the political nature of these firings.
T) 50 to start, but growing by the hour as a mad congress invests more time to trace the matter. A) 50 and 100. 50 to the majority of the people. Lies in Congress are expected. 100 to Congress. They do not expect lies. C) 0 still. I) I'll leave this up to you folks to decide.
What ever your view on the Attorney thing, I believe the TACI formula is a good way of grading political moves.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: A--60. While the bad reviews make the firings Appear more justifiable, giving a bad review undeservedly appears to be mean and dirty. Too many people have had that happen in their own lives, and can identify with the fired lawyers.
Maybe, but I'd say that things like Patrick Fitzgerald's ranking have come back to hurt the appearance of all this even more than going without the reviews would.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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