Steven Den Beste has an excellent article out on the problems the US is facing with its State Department. I happen to prefer the label mandarin class as a descriptor for them as they (and their co-mandarins in other government departments) only formally subscribe to the policies of the government of the day. When the government of the day happens to agree with the mandarin class, everything is fine and dandy. When conflicts arise, the mandarinate strikes back, attacking the government they are sworn to serve and continuing, as much as possible, in their own policy preferences.
This [Ed. by which I mean the US mandarinate] is nothing that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned and is a system completely at odds with the idea that the People rule. It is an illness in our body politic that eventually must be rooted out. The only question being how and when.
Posted by TMLutas at September 2, 2003 07:12 PM