A world of failure-proud leaders

Look, you need to get this through your head. A lot of Monday-morning quarterback types are saying I shouldn’t have broken into your house and knocked your teeth out with a crowbar. And I get it. Small-minded people like to criticize and second-guess.

But the more important truth is that because of the extraordinary quality of my compliance with the court’s restitution order, you’ve received an exquisite new set of implants from one of the best dentists in the state. They look great, and you’re welcome. Frankly, your new teeth are a huge success, and I’m not going to allow the naysayers to detract from it. I’m very proud of my leadership on this issue, and I urge you to allow me to return to your house with my crowbar.

Failure upon failure upon failure

Los Angeles suffered a transportation disaster last weekend, as a wall of flames swept through an illegal pallet storage yard crowded with homeless encampments right underneath one of our most critical sections of freeway. You can watch extraordinary footage of flames consuming mountains of densely packed wooden pallets, intercut with footage of homeless people scrambling to save their belongings from the fire. The failures leading up to this appalling scene are many: failure to supervise a state lease of under-freeway storage space, failure to enforce the local fire code, failure to keep encampments away from critical areas full of flammable materials. And on and on.

But state and city leaders did a remarkable thing in the face of all that failure: They immediately began to brag about their extraordinary successes.

Mayor Karen Bass, a selfie-focused symbol-performer whose proud demeanor never quite matches any moment she occupies, took to social media to boast that government-hired crews cleaned out the fire debris in just five days. “This is what 5 days of absolute urgency looks like,” she bragged on X (formerly Twitter). “Los Angeles will NOT be stopped.”

The repackaging of failure as success, or of the cleanup as the win, emerges from the growing inability of authority to see failure.

Kevin Dalton, a close observer of California madness, responded by seeing the moment clearly: “Karen Bass patting herself and Gavin Newsom on the backs for clearing the debris away from beneath the burned portion of the 10 freeway in record time that would not have burned had they simply done their job and moved the kindling to begin with.”

This is not an obscure point. Everyone can see it – or rather, everyone except California's elected sociopaths, who are always very proud of themselves.

Governor Gavin Newsom may have outdone Bass in the obtuse self-promotion category: “All hazardous materials — roughly 264,000 cubic square feet — have been cleaned from the 10 Freeway repair site, two days ahead of schedule. @CaltransDist7 now has full site access to shore up support pillars & begin repairs. We are working 24/7 to get LA’s traffic moving.” Where did all those hazardous materials come from, Governor? (And what on earth is a “cubic square foot?”)

The repackaging of failure as success, or of the cleanup as the win, emerges from the growing inability of authority to see failure.

The apotheosis of failure-blindness

At the same time California is cleaning up under its burned freeway, one of the most heavily COVID-vaxxed and locked-down nations in the world is enduring its eighth wave of COVID infections.

But don't worry, because Australia’s public health officials have a plan to slow a major COVID outbreak in a nation that achieved a greater than 95% vaccination rate after prolonged lockdowns and violent enforcement of mask mandates: They want everyone to mask, vaccinate, and quarantine.

“[Australian Capital Territory] Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith urged locals to wear a mask when visiting spaces with vulnerable people and take a rapid antigen test before visiting a hospital or at the onset of cold and flu symptoms. ... 'Make sure that you’re up to date with your COVID-19 vaccinations, and of course, if you're sick, stay home,' she said.” If you get COVID while ignoring these important health guidelines, it will be your fault, because public health authorities never fail.

The apotheosis of boastful failure-blindness can be found, of course, in the American Green Zone known as the District of Columbia.

In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that Syria would have a change of leadership; President Bashar al-Assad, he explained, “must go.” Obama is no longer in the White House, but Assad remains. Similarly, the Taliban controlled half of Afghanistan when the United States invaded in 2001; when U.S. forces withdrew after 20 years of war against the Taliban, it quickly took control of the whole country.

And so, this month, American security officials are explaining to the Israeli Defense Forces how they must proceed to achieve success in their war against Hamas. Here is National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan telling Israel what targets it may attack: “The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals, where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire. ... And we’ve had active consultations with Israeli defense forces on this.”

But what does Israel do if Hamas is using hospitals as barracks and armories? The nation that just spent two decades waging war in several places in the Middle East and Asia without victories knows what Israel shouldn’t do but has less useful guidance on the question of what it should do.