The State Department is a great example of how bureauracracies get screwed up over time. Entire State Department careers were dedicated to developing and maintaining the cold war status quo kabuki rituals. People joined state and worked on the same problem until they retired and then left behind a cadre trained to continue working on the same problem – they don’t want a new problem, they want to keep working on the one they know all about and are bound and determined to make the current problem fit their mold.

I really thought Colin Powell was the right guy to fix that, but it doesn’t seem to have worked that way. They seem to have “fixed” him instead. I thought any leader who had a real part in changing the US Army from what it was at the end of the Carter administration into the force we sent to Kuwait in GWI was a “change agent” type fella. That was a near miracle considering there was only a little old decade between the two. Oh well, not all our heroes can do everything we want all the time.