(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The last 6 House Speakers (or incompetence is not a virtue) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-05 I wasn’t really sure what to call this diary. I mean, the truth is staring us in the face. In fact, it's so obvious I think it’s really easy to miss. There is a business management philosophy called the Peter Principle that is just like this; it’s so obvious it’s easy to miss. The main idea of The Peter Principle: …. if you perform well in your job, you will likely be promoted to the next level of your organization's hierarchy. You will continue to rise up the ladder until you reach the point where you can no longer perform well. Of course, if we extrapolate this out further, we see how we can get to a point where a large majority of any given organization is made up of people either underqualified or completely unqualified for their roles. The amount this affects the organization is directly related to the quality of the people originally brought into the system and the quality of their training and mentorship afterward. Additionally, poor leaders often attract and hire poor employees as well which only compounds the problem. That’s so easy to understand for anyone working in the corporate world. A good employee is promoted to be a supervisor, often with little or no training, where they either fail or they get their feet under them. Note it's important to remember that “good” in this example is very relative, they are “good” in comparison to the rest of the employee pool, not to the population at large. From there, the supervisors that do get their feet under them are eventually promoted to middle management, where the "fail or get their feet under them" process starts all over again until eventually, no matter what level they stop at, they are put into a position where they are in way over their heads. Has anyone stopped to really consider the true depth of the incompetence of the GOP Speakers in modern history? I am not talking about the current clown show that finally appears to have even the mainstream media accurately reporting on the GOP’s dysfunction, I am talking about the historical inability of Republicans to promote quality leaders who can actually govern. Let’s look at the last 6 Speakers shall we: Gingrich Gingrich resigned as Speaker in 1998 with the NYT saying at the time that he was “an expert in how to seize power, but a novice in holding it" and this just "illustrate[s] how hard it is for a radical, polarizing figure to last in leadership" Ahh… truer words have never been spoken by the leading media beacon for both-sides reporting. Boehner John Boehner resigned as Speaker in 2015 and decided not to run for office again because the hard right Tea Party nutjobs were… well… nutjobs. Interestingly, according to the Wiki page of Boehner’s resignation (I had forgotten about this myself) “Originally, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California had intended to run for Speaker and was seen as the prohibitive favorite. On October 8, 2015, McCarthy abruptly rescinded his candidacy, citing that he felt he could not effectively lead a fractured Republican Conference.” Imagine that, Kevin was right at least once in his life, of course, he seems to have forgotten his one and only sage-worthy assessment in his whole professional career because… McCarthy Now Kevin McCarthy FAaFO that his 2015 assessment of the ungovernability of the House was exactly correct as he has been pushed out. In fact, his 27 or so Scaramucci term length is one of the shortest in American history (but not THE shortest, which is oddly 1 day served, I love history). Hastert Hastert didn’t resign as Speaker but in 2007 he did resign in the middle of his House term.... and subsequently pleaded guilty to sexual abuse. The Chicago Tribune editorial board said "The enduring impact is that the truth has been revealed. And for as long as the name Dennis Hastert is recalled, the man once respected as a leader will be known as a criminal, a scoundrel, a child molester." Ryan Paul Ryan is the only one of the last five Republican Speakers to leave his speakership under regular order and not go down under federal criminal indictments afterward. So who did I leave out, let me think….. OH, that’s right! Pelosi Nancy Pelosi served two very effective stints as Speaker. In fact Kevin “the House is ungovernable” McCarthy, I would point out that in her last term, she had a smaller majority than you and she was able to get some of the largest and most consequential pieces of legislation passed in modern history…. oh, and she wasn’t removed from her Speakership by her own caucus, I mean, with friends like yours who needs enemies huh? So that’s the last 6 Speakers, you know, the people second in line for the Presidency and arguably the second most important position in the whole of the Federal Government. Of these 6, five were Republicans. The fact that the GOP leadership is like a revolving door says something about the quality and stability of the Republican organization as a whole doesn’t it? Going back to the Peter Principal, these are the best leaders the Republican organization can field because their “worker pool” is of such low quality to begin with. And it’s very obvious their leaders are in over their heads when they receive the promotion to the Speakership. Of these 5, THREE resigned during their Speakership…. HALF of the last 5 Republican Speakers of the House have resigned during their term! Stop and think about that for a second. This almost doubles the number of Speaker resignations since our nation’s founding. Not coincidentally this goes hand in hand with Trump’s record number of impeachments. And of course of these 5, only two retired from their Speakership after serving a full term and one of them went on to a guilty plea in Federal court. Can someone in the media PLEASE finally start reporting on the Republican’s complete incompetence when it comes to actually governing when they get into power? This current situation with McCarthy is big news. Still, it’s covering the bigger problem that the GOP simply can’t attract real people into its system and that is affecting the quality of their leadership. They simply can not be given the power of management because at best their leaders are underqualified and in most cases they are entirely unqualified to hold any position in government let alone 2nd in line to the Presidency. The incompetence is astounding! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2197536/-The-last-6-House-Speakers-or-incompetence-is-not-a-virtue?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/