I’ll never forget in 2008, when the teleprompter at the Republican convention “failed” just as Sarah was starting to give her speech.
Winds up that the Republicans had hired a FLAMING LIBERAL to operate the device. Republican leaders seem to think that none of the “little people” have political thoughts and could sabotage their efforts. They just cannot comprehend that. Remember one of Bush’s top guys for debate prep, likewise, we working both sides...and Kerry’s (I think) people knew EVERYTHING that Bush had done to prepare.
When the Republicans hire people, their first question should be to ask them what party they support. The second question should be for them to PROVE it. Then hit them up with a few questions that only Republicans could understand, such as “What is an amortization schedule”?
There are ways to screen, but you MUST do that, when you give people that much power over your effort - you just don’t hand the keys to some bearded dope smoker with a Grateful Dead shirt and expect him to be on your side.
(by the way, Sarah did just fine without the teleprompter)
Agreed. People hired by the GOP to oversee critical technology must be reliably conservative. It’s too important to allow some long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM type to infiltrate the system.
Given that this whole Orca effort was run from Massachusetts, which is full of liberals in the tech sector just as it is everywhere else, the likelihood of deliberately shoddy design or outright sabotage is pretty high, IMO.
One of the stories that is told about my start in politics is that on the way home from law school one night in 1948, I stopped by the ward headquarters in the ward where I lived. There was a street-front, and the name Timothy O'Sullivan, Ward Committeeman, was painted on the front window. I walked in and I said "I'd like to volunteer to work for [Adlai] Stevenson and [Paul] Douglas." This quintessential Chicago ward committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth and glared at me and said, "Who sent you?" I said, "Nobody sent me." He put the cigar back in his mouth and he said, "We don't want nobody that nobody sent." This was the beginning of my political career in Chicago.[1]The essential truth in the story is that the only way to guard against betrayal is to only use people who have been vouched for by people you have known for a long time, and who have known the person for a long time. Technical ability is secondary to being able to trust the person.
This is why the original Sicilian Mafia would only take fellow Sicilians, people who could be checked up on by asking around the village they grew up in.