Consider this a eulogy for competence.
It’s an appreciation long overdue, but then, competence – the quality of being equal to the situation, of knowing what to do – was always easy to overlook. You learned to expect it, to take it for granted.
Competence was not sexy.
Another reason this eulogy is overdue is that the loss of competence – meaning federal government competence – is not recent. To the contrary, competence has been gone since January of 2017.
But the events of the last week make this an especially appropriate time for a eulogy. Seldom has the absence of competence seemed more glaring. Seldom have we been able to draw such a direct line between that absence and threats to our physical and financial health.