Re: Carson defends record, tangles with Warren at confirmation hearing
i believe you are expecting too much expertise in a narrow area of government
Carson is a proven executive
Sorry, but no... he isn't. He headed up a small department (pediatric neurosurgery) at a prestigious hospital. I'm pretty sure he managed somewhere around 20-30 people, which is a far cry from 8300.
He has zero, repeat ZERO, education or experience in urban planning. He's never even worked at a government agency. He's never had to lead an organization of career civil servants. He knows nothing about housing. He's never worked in the field at all.
Even his own answers show his inadequacy. In one breath, he says that there are no "sacred cow" programs at HUD that can't be cut. The next, he promised to protect numerous HUD programs and increase spending. Best of all, he declared that he had "a problem with people on high dictating it when they don’t know anything about what’s going on in the area" and does not want "people sitting around in desks in Washington, D.C., deciding on how things should be done." And yet, he will be that person on high, dictating government policies on housing, from a desk in DC, with no idea about what's going on.
His nomination is a cruel joke, by an already incompetent President-elect who is clearly more interested in gutting HUD than in helping people.
his CV proves him to possess a gifted intellect and Carson appears to follow sound personal principles
His CV proves that he is an excellent neurosurgeon, and presumably a good hospital department head. That's a completely different skill set than running a massive federal agency.
Principles are great. But that's only a small part of the job requirement.
the head of a federal agency must be able to identify what is important to be accomplished, and (s)he must be able to recognize those with the talent to assure those things are done well
there is no reason to doubt Dr Carson is capable of either
...except that he has no training in the field, no experience in the field, has never worked at a government agency, has never worked with a bunch of career civil servants....
and here is the difference. brown - by choice - displayed no interest in the activities of the organization he headed. and that reality would have remained concealed if he had only delegated his authority to the capable career staff of FEMA. altho ignorant of FEMA and its operational activities, brown refused to allow subordinates to make critical decisions. and we experienced the fubar that was katrina's misery inflicted upon the bayou
i cannot say it for a fact, but my strong suspicion is that Carson is nothing like brown. Caron is accomplished
No, that wasn't the problem at all.
Brown could not simply have stepped aside during the Katrina aftermath and let an undersecretary take over. Not only was he personally responsible for critical decisions after the hurricane, it was his job to get the agency ready for those types of events. The problem wasn't a lack of interest, it was rank incompetence. He had no business whatsoever heading up FEMA, in the same way -- and for many of the same reasons -- that Carson has no business running HUD.
