Questions of basic competence

Nieman Watchdog's, Pete Davis on the mess the next president is going to inherit:

You don't have to be a Washington policy wonk to notice that our government has ceased to function on many levels. Ronald Reagan ran against the government, but it still worked under him, even after firing the air traffic controllers. Newt Gingrich led the radical conservative charge that literally shut the government down in the fall of 1996. That's when the real damage started. Worse was to come.


President George W. Bush and his appointees have attacked the heart and soul of agency after agency and have soured relations with both parties in Congress, almost like Lou Gehrig’s disease, an autoimmune response gone awry.

He's got a list of questions for the next president. Some are snark - but others are pretty good questions for any candidate. Not all of their answers can be laid at the feet of the current administration, either.

I'd argue they should all be laid at the feet of whoever is taking over next year - because it's for damn sure the current occupant of the White House will continue to sidestep these issues.