You can't get what you want, you can't want what you get. Desire's a fire with big red eyes and it'll leave you hungry

One of the great mysteries in American life was answered today. In the case of Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President Bush, was he an actual idiot in real life or did he just play one on TV? Apparently, it's the former. From Slate's coverage of the Libby trial:

Turns out Fleischer saw a story in the Washington Post suggesting that anyone who revealed Valerie Plame's identity might be subject to the death penalty. And he freaked.

Unfortunately, Swopa at the Needlenose blog thinks this might not be quite right, but it's still hilarious, in a "these bastards risked our national security to get revenge on one of the few honest people we had in government and his wife, who was helping to fight arms proliferation until said bastards outed her to the world, and ain't comeuppance quite the raging bitch" kind of way.

Fleischer's plight reminds me of another of life's great mysteries, or at least mysteries to me. Why would anyone want a job where they are basically an extremely prominent peon, a familiar face to millions at a job utterly devoid of actual power to do anything at all? When your superiors ask you to bend rules, the result is almost inevitably a felony, and those same superiors will make sure that when certain excremental products hit the fan, you are the one covered head to toe while they come out smelling like a rose (at least if someone other than Patrick Fitzgerald investigates the case). Why would anyone want a job like this? Sure, ambition can drive people up the job ladder, and the Peter Principle guarantees that everyone rises to the level of their own incompetence, as this administration has proven hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Still, who grows up wishing that they might someday become a felonious peon standing near the centers of actual power without ever being delegated any for themselves? It's not a problem unique to government, of course, as any number of corporate executives have proven over the years.

I blame the morality of large enterprises. Neither the government nor large businesses act in a way that individuals would consider "moral". It's not their job to do so, but we seem to pretend frequently that they will anyway. People are loyal to their employer, even though their employer will fire them the second that they no longer contribute sufficiently to make the shareholders and CFO happy. People are loyal to an administration, even though it's policies will generally fall vastly short of their lofty rhetoric and they will be expected as part of their daily duties to cover this fact up. Frankly, blind loyalty to inanimate entities makes idiots of us all, and what's worse, turns people who would otherwise be relatively harmless putzes into virulent schmucks. And in the end, for what? I know people can justify it, but I simply don't get it. What exactly is it that people need, anyway? Once you've got a significant other, family, and friends with whom to spend your time, a good personal library, a kickass TV with a 5+1 surround sound audio system, high speed internet, and enough cash to afford frequent seafood, periodic entertainment events (sports, theatre, movies, dancing, etc...), and the occasional trip somewhere exotic, what more could a person seriously ask for? I'm not even joking here. If you can get all those things by working no more than 10-11 hours a day, then what exactly is the point of all the extra time (for those who can pull it off in 8/day, my hat is off to you, unless you happened to inherit it...)? I just don't understand ambition.