I hope by now you have figured out that I’m not so dumb that I would write an article supporting one of our political parties.  Egad!  But both of our major parties have a lot in common.  They both want to convince us that what they are doing is for our benefit (not just to get reelected).  But I guess some things they do could result in both.

What got me started on this subject is I’m reading a series of books by C.J. Box whose main character is a Wyoming game warden named Joe Pickett. Joe is a true Dudley Do-Right.  The governor has discovered that Joe can get to the bottom of difficult, sensitive issues and uses him accordingly.  The governor always keeps his distance in case Joe screws up.  Plausible deniability.

The governor had a running battle with the Federal government and Joe caught Federal agents committing unlawful acts.  Joe had positive evidence of the crimes and turned the evidence over to the governor, who didn’t act on it.  Joe was confused.  The governor said, “Joe, you don’t think like a politician.”  He explained to Joe that he was going to hold the information over the Feds to insure he got what he wanted.  In college I took a course entitled, “Introduction to Political Thought,”  This subject of extortion never came up.

I retired from the Army when one of my former bosses was appointed as Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and asked me to be his Chief Counsel.  All of a sudden, I found myself a political appointee.  The good news was that I was up to my neck in running the office and learning about motor vehicle safety.  Not much time for politics.

One of the other political appointees was a fellow named Jamie and his title was Director of Legislative Affairs.  He was our liaison with the Hill and definitely was a political animal.  He saw conspiracies and plots everywhere.

During my second year at the Agency, I observed something going wrong. For the life of me I can’t remember what it was, but I had the capability to nip it in the bud and the problem went away.  A few days later, Jamie came in to discuss the matter.  He observed that I had solved the problem but explained that I should have handled the problem differently.  I should have waited until the problem was bigger and had more “visibility.”  Then when I solved the problem it would have had more “impact” and I could have given credit to my boss.  Say what?!  I guess that’s thinking like a politician.

In 1991, we were rolling out the airbag rule.  All passenger cars would be required to have frontal airbags for the driver and the front-seat passenger.  One congressman, who believed that he was the father of the airbag, decided that Jamie had snubbed him in the announcement of the new rule.  He repaid Jamie by eliminating Jamie’s position and his secretary’s position at the Agency. There was no longer a Director of Legislative Affairs.  We really missed the secretary.  Jamie left the Agency and took a job up on the Hill with the other party.  He had no strong political beliefs.  He could be loyal to either side and he could think like a politician.