The Doofus Factor
Perhaps the single most important criterion for service in the Bush administration: you need to be an ignoramus.
Two Americans are standing on a corner in East Jibip, Texarkanahoma. Along comes this Citroen with its window rolled down. The car stops right next to them and the driver asks for directions in French.DownWithTyranny!: Here's a surprise: The State Dept. is critically short of people with adequate language skills to deal with the rest of the world
The Americans stare blankly, so the driver switches to German. Still no response.
The driver then tries Italian. No use.
Frustrated, he drives away.
The one American turns to the other and says, "You know, we Americans really should learn a foreign language."
"Why?" his friend asks. "That guy spoke three and it didn't do him any good!"
Boy, if I was the Government Accountability Office, I'd be shivering in my boots--that is, if the Bush administration wasn't the second coming of Jimmy Breslin's famous "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."Technorati Tags: Bush, moron, idiot, stupid, State Department, language skills
Of course, maybe it really doesn't matter that the GAO keeps issuing one report after another documenting yet another aspect of the Bush administration's malfeasance. I expect that Karl Rove's attitude is that no "real" Americans give a damn about any goddamn GAO reports.
Latest up, as reported by Anushka Asthana in the Washington Post: "Nearly 30 percent of State Department employees based overseas in 'language-designated positions' are failing to speak and write the local language well enough to meet required levels," according to a GAO report. The Post story continues:
"We have a shortage of people with language skills in posts that need them," said John Brummet, assistant director for international affairs and trade at the GAO. "If people do not have the proper language skills, it is difficult to influence the people and government and to understand what they are thinking. It just doesn't get the job done."
