Incompetence: Mistake or 'Un-Intelligent' Design?

I think many Americans found the incompetence of FEMA's Katrina response shocking and wondered how could this happen. It would be even more shocking to Americans if this incompetency was by design. Yet a case could be made that striving to render the federal gov't incompetent is taking place by design as part of the the conservatives desire for "starving the beast" or Grover Norquist's homicidal penchant for drowning.

FEMA lost many experienced workers during the Bush administration....

Some employees felt they were viewed as Clinton administration carryovers and not welcome in the Bush administration; some employees felt they could no longer do their jobs; and some employees were ready to leave and found opportunities in the private sector because of a demand for homeland security expertise, she said.

Then today we learn that a similar house cleaning is taking place at the Justice Dept......

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

Conservatives' actions of routing out experienced employees is an insidious means of rigging gov't towards incompetence. When this happens it is far easier to convince the American people gov't doesn't work and thus "drowning" it is just a-okay.