If I can beat my tom tom once again, we as a
nation need to accept that I cannot play Basketball as well as Michael Jordan and conversely, he probably can't shoot a pistol as well as I can. We all have equal rights before the law but we are not all equal. We make many mistakes in policy and in practice due to the assumption that X can do a particular job because he was this or has that experience.
T'ain't so. Crocker and Petraeus appear to be the right persons for the job right now. I would argue that at least one of their predecessors in those same jobs should never have had them. :(
Rob's great post and Stan's comment point to a very complex problem for which there is no simple solution and there are many facets of that problem that need to be addressed but when all is said and done, the best system in the world will founder with the wrong person in charge. It is possible to design systems that are so redundant and fail safe that the ability of the boss to severely impact the processes adversely is reduced but that possibility cannot be eliminated.
Such tightly designed and controlled systems -- for which we seem to constantly opt -- may eliminate some failures; but like the ARTEP (Hark, drums...:wry:) they will also cut off the peaks. That is not good...
This is, of course, a plea for all shakers and movers to rigorously reject over control and select people for jobs based on their ability and not because it's "their turn." It is also a warning that ignoring both those dictums too frequently lead to failure.