A friend recently wrote an article that he gave me permission to repost here. He contrasts the Peter Principle with what he calls the Palin Principle. You can find the original here with a bunch of links and useful info.
The Peter Principle states that in a hierarchy, each person are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain. It's formulators, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull based this principle on a near ubiquitous observation. It seems true whether talking about military hierarchies, corporate hierarchies, or political hierarchies.
The Palin Principle states an incompetent person gets appointed to high position within a hierarchy for reasons which have nothing to do with their incompetence. This principle is named after its primary example, Sarah Palin.
Senator John McCain chose Palin for her gender, her inexperience youth, her conservative Christian views, and her willingness to allow big business to do whatever it damn well pleases without regard for the environment. In her short 20 month tenure as Governor of Alaska, Palin has not demonstrated the competency required to take over the highest job in the land at a moment's notice. She was therefore selected for reasons which have nothing to do with her incompetency.
Some other examples:
President George H. W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court for reasons that had nothing to do with Thomas's inability to adjudicate legal disputes. This came about one year after the Bush appointed Thomas to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Barely a year into his first job as a federal judge, and without making any distinguishing marks as a judge, he gets put on the highest court in the land, bypassing hundreds of more qualified jurists. Why? He has the same skin color as his predecessor, Thurgood Marshall, and Bush apparently wanted to preserve the racial composition of the highest court and also wanted to move the court towards a more conservative ideology. Numerous legal scholars have commented that Thomas's inaction during court sessions, and the dearth of opinions written by him indicate the man is way out of his league. He is there for reasons which have nothing to do with his incompetence.
The older president Bush provided us with another example of appointing a person for reasons which have nothing to do with the person's incompetence. In the 1988 and 1992 elections, he chose Dan Quayle as his running mate. From the first day of the announcement of his position on the Republican ticket in 1988, people have questioned Quayle's ability to lead the United States. This is a guy who can't spell "potatoe" if a second grader wrote it down for him. (n.b. - A second grader did write it for him, and the Veep still got it wrong.) He was also appointed as chairman of the Space Exploration Initiative, which included a manned landing on Mars. His reason for going to Mars? "Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." As Molly Ivins said it, "Just Plain Dumb". So how would a guy this dumb end up on the ticket? Bush wanted somebody who appealed to younger voters, and as Senator John McCain put it, "I can't believe a guy that handsome wouldn't have some impact." Once again, the incompetent person gets the office for reasons which have nothing to do with his incompetency.
The younger Bush has given us numerous examples of the Palin Principle. There is Michael D. Brown who could not save himself from the political hurricane surrounding his incompetence over mishandling FEMA's response to hurricane Katrina. He got his job simply by donating time and money to Bush's election campaign back in 2000, and being a friend of the campaign manager. I can also mention Harriet Miers who withdrew her own nomination to the US Supreme Court once her incompetence was revealed.
Bush also gave us Monica Goodling, who hired and fired attorneys at the the United States Department of Justice based on their loyalty to the Republican Party or their devotion to conservative ideology. One former colleague described her as "She was inexperienced, way too naïve and a little overzealous". Of course, she got her spot by being loyal to the Republican Party. Goodling is not just an example of the Palin Principle, but was in office to implement the Palin Principle. She hired attorneys not for their incompetency, but for reasons which have nothing to do with their incompetency.
Each time the Republicans nominate somebody incompetent, I can't help but think they have bypassed many other very qualified people. As much as I disagree with Tom Ridge's policies, or Tim Pawlenty's views, I see them as more competent governors than Sarah Palin. Same with all the judges the older Bush passed over to select Clarence Thomas - and then declared he was the "most qualified person for the job". Each instance of the Palin Principle underscores the willingness of the Republican Party to damage our country in its pursuit of greater control over our democracy for each incompetent person in office prevents our government from carrying out its necessary duties to protect our liberties in courts (e.g. - Thomas, Miers, and Goodling), secure our lives and properties in natural disasters (e.g. - Michael Brown), and preserve our environment (e.g. - James Watt).
The President has all these duties and many more, and exercises those duties through nominations to various government agencies. For a presidential candidate to choose somebody woefully incompetent to succeed him in office is reckless. By choosing Palin, McCain has abandoned his duty to protect and defend the United States and its citizens.
As long as the Republicans value ideology over competency, and loyalty over ability, I am reminded of this quote by the great poet of Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges, "Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy."