Monday, October 26, 2015

Profiles in bad management

One thing that really catches my eye about the Congressional interrogation of Hilliary Clinton is that apparently the Benghazi consulate asked for greater security no less than 600 times, but she claimed that the matter never reached her desk.

Now, of course, it's likely that when the Russians and Chinese release Hilliary's emails to the world, we're going to find that she indeed did hear about the matter, but let's take her at her word and assume this is in fact true.  The State Department got no less than 600 requests, and not one of them got elevated beyond the people who were denying them.  Never did the requester decide to go above the heads of the security professionals.

This indicates a huge issue in the State Department--people appear to be very able to keep unpolitic realities at bay there for huge amounts of time.  To draw a picture, when I had colleagues at a former employer with a plan that would gut reliability testing, I did eventually bring people in at the VP level regarding the matter--and the offenders quickly left the company.  If indeed this does not happen at the State Department, there is a reason--most likely that if you go above peoples' heads, retribution will be swift, severe, and even career-ending.

It's a bummer that we don't have independent auditors who could take a serious look at the culture there to see what's really going on.  It would appear that there is some evidence that our government has a culture that could get a lot more than just four Americans killed, to put it mildly.

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