In days of old, good Americans drove American iron, built by Detroit, the bigger the better, and the engine was connected to the transmission through something called a "clutch" (now a "manual clutch" since almost all are automatic). A problem in learning to drive was engaging the clutch--feeding just enough gas to the engine with the shift in first gear, not second or third, so that the engine wouldn't stall. (This was a big problem for me.) The issue is meshing two mechanical systems--the internal combustion engine and the transmission and wheels--matching force and the resistance of inertia.
On the farm, our tractor had a "power take-off" (PTO) --a rotating shaft driven by the tractor engine. The mowing machine was driven by it--a sleeve slipped over the shaft, transferring the rotary motion to the mower, which had a "pittman bar" to transform the rotary motion to back and forth lateral motion, which operated the cutting bar. At some point in the transmission there was a "shear pin". If the mower jammed up, the pin would shear in two, disconnecting the mower from the tractor PTO. This safeguarded the mower--otherwise the force of the tractor could snap expensive parts of the mower. Another aspect of matching force and resistance.
I'm thinking of these as metaphors when reading commentary on Mark Felt and this Washington Post article on the new Secretary of Agriculture. The problem is matching the power and force of the political appointees with the capabilities and inertia of the bureaucracy. (Remember that "inertia" in physics, if I remember some 50 years ago, is the tendency of a body to continue as it was: if it was moving, it has inertia; if stopped, it has inertia.) If you have a mismatch, there will be problems. In the case of Johanns, he's carrying over some of Veneman's people and appointing people experienced with the issues. In the case of Porter Goss at the CIA, he appears to have brought in his own people, and his own agenda, so there was an explosion. In the case of L. Patrick Gray there was also an explosion.
So leaks may be symptoms of a mismatch of force and inertia, or may result in parts flying off, as bureaucrats are fired as in the Goss and Gray cases.
4 comments:
Bil,
As a current bureaucrat, there aren't enough parts flying off in many agencies. darned those pins and clutches!
Gee, my first comment ever! I'm stunned, so much so it inhibited my blogging because I didn't know how to respond.
Seriously--I'm not sure whether you want more current bureaucrats ousted (as the new head of NASA seems to be doing) or more flak for the new appointees.
Maybe an extended riff on the metaphor of bureaucratic "machinery" is called for.
Well Bill,
I'm honored. I didn't realize I was the first to reply here. I came upon your site through a Google search while trying to figure out how to access Achenbach's blog and it interested me.
I'm not all that bright or insightful, but will post here from time to time if it's okay with you. I have an academic as well as practitioner stake in the bureaucracy, and value the opinions of one who has survived to obtain a pension from it.
Readers are gold in the world of blogging, both as an affirmation and a reality check. Your time is the coin of the realm.
It's also interesting to know how you discovered the site.
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