I don't know how convinced I am that Bush was responsible for all of this (he was clearly a major contributor, but there is plenty of blame to go around). But I think the general point hits the nail on the head. I was just reading something that Aaron wrote (that BenoitEssiambre linked to earlier) here: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis
When Oprah started defending fabulist James Frey, she was savaged by the press. So she invited her critics on the show and apologized, saying “You were right, I was wrong.” It didn’t destroy her reputation; it rescued it. When the space shuttle Columbia exploded, launch manager Wayne Hale took full responsibility: “The bottom line is that I failed to understand what I was being told…I am guilty of allowing Columbia to crash.” He was promoted. When JFK admitted the responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco was “mine, and mine alone,” his poll numbers soared.
People, for good reason, like it when other people own their mistakes. But we've built bureaucracies that don't. They have far too rigid accountability rules. Everything you do gets put in your file, and the file is what it takes you get you fired when someone wants to get rid of you for internal political reasons, so everyone has to be sure they never admit they've done anything wrong. "For crying out loud, man, don't improve our ability to detect mistakes, those mistakes go in or records!"
The criminal justice system works the same way. If you admit what you did, you get punished. If you deny it successfully you go free. But we can't have criminals going free, so we make it impractical for "normal criminals" to deny anything successfully. Then your choice becomes to confess and face punishment or assert your innocence and face an even larger punishment -- a choice that doesn't depend on whether you were actually guilty or innocent, or whether you should have been guilty or innocent under a more just set of laws.
So we get where we are: If you get accused of something the penalties are absurd, so if you're a big Wall St. guy with a billion dollars, you spend a fortune on the Big Lie and get out of any real punishment whatsoever, and if you're not a millionaire then you plead guilty regardless of your guilt so that you "only" go to prison for six months instead of six years.
And then we wonder where prosecutors and politicians possibly got the idea that the Big Lie is the way to go.
Not disagreeing with you, but one comment that I think should be made on the Semmelweis piece: as I commented when it was posted on HN quite a while back, Swartz comes close to arguing that people who admit their mistakes deserve, not just to have that admission acknowledged as a positive thing, but to be promoted, have poll numbers soar, etc.
I think that's too strong. If Carmen Ortiz were to admit she made a mistake, does that mean she should be promoted? Become a candidate for Attorney General? I don't think so. Admitting that you made a mistake is great; but if it's a big enough mistake, admitting it might just be the first step towards resigning so someone with better judgment can take your place.
I think part of owning a mistake it to stop making it. Ortiz is in a rare position to do something about all of this. Own the mistake, admit to it, and do something about it. Bring Congress the real facts on the ground. Tell them why it is the way it is and produce a meaningful plan to change it. Go stand next to Larry Lessig and ask them to fix the laws. Eat as much crow as you have to in order to do the right thing, and then eat a little more.
Heck, she's a prosecutor, why doesn't she prosecute some of the jackholes who actually deserve it? Who made the system work this way? Go take on the prison industrial complex. Catch prison companies breaking election laws in order to push bills for the express purpose of increasing the prison population and put that on the front page. Work with whatever the federal equivalent of internal affairs is and investigate the propriety of her own Department of Justice being stacked with former RIAA attorneys[1] and prosecute anyone involved who she can prove committed misconduct. Wage a campaign against policy laundering as a mechanism to over-criminalize nonviolent actions and prosecute some international corporations for bribery or treason or whatever you can get to stick to them. Then even if they fired her it would be as the hero instead of the villain, and she can go to work filing civil suits of the sort that criminal justice reform advocates are always wanting to, but with a head full of insider information.
That is how you redeem yourself after you make a mistake, not by denying everything and going back to business as usual.
Thanks for posting the semmelweis piece from Aaron. With all of the links being passed around this week I missed it. It is amazingly relevant to this discussion and (if it hasn't been done already) it should be sent to the DoJ and Ortiz personally.
Not that I think it will make any difference though.
When Oprah started defending fabulist James Frey, she was savaged by the press. So she invited her critics on the show and apologized, saying “You were right, I was wrong.” It didn’t destroy her reputation; it rescued it. When the space shuttle Columbia exploded, launch manager Wayne Hale took full responsibility: “The bottom line is that I failed to understand what I was being told…I am guilty of allowing Columbia to crash.” He was promoted. When JFK admitted the responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco was “mine, and mine alone,” his poll numbers soared.
People, for good reason, like it when other people own their mistakes. But we've built bureaucracies that don't. They have far too rigid accountability rules. Everything you do gets put in your file, and the file is what it takes you get you fired when someone wants to get rid of you for internal political reasons, so everyone has to be sure they never admit they've done anything wrong. "For crying out loud, man, don't improve our ability to detect mistakes, those mistakes go in or records!"
The criminal justice system works the same way. If you admit what you did, you get punished. If you deny it successfully you go free. But we can't have criminals going free, so we make it impractical for "normal criminals" to deny anything successfully. Then your choice becomes to confess and face punishment or assert your innocence and face an even larger punishment -- a choice that doesn't depend on whether you were actually guilty or innocent, or whether you should have been guilty or innocent under a more just set of laws.
So we get where we are: If you get accused of something the penalties are absurd, so if you're a big Wall St. guy with a billion dollars, you spend a fortune on the Big Lie and get out of any real punishment whatsoever, and if you're not a millionaire then you plead guilty regardless of your guilt so that you "only" go to prison for six months instead of six years.
And then we wonder where prosecutors and politicians possibly got the idea that the Big Lie is the way to go.