"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."
--Petronius, 210 B.C.
Would you argue that the current alphabet soup and its excessive redundancy across departments, functions and budgets was in any way at all "forming into teams?" Not even close. I know very little about what Bush said at this point and I am extremely suspicious of large governemnt, but if this actually allows us to cut some fat, remove some bureacracy, eliminate redundancy and creat more efficiency, than it would seem that this plan just MIGHT actually have a prayer's chance of taking the current mess and "forming a team." I do not see where your analogy can even be remotely close to a realistic assessment, given the current size, scope and complexity of the Federal Govt., which was becoming more complex daily as opposed to beginning to "form a team."
Don't know if your quote is correct, but your date is wrong. Petronius, known more fully as Petronius Arbiter, was a contemporary of the Roman Emperor Nero, who reigned in the middle of the first century AD.