When a guy steps on a rake, we laugh. Right? It’s what we do. We are hard-wired to laugh when the rake comes up and does its thing. It’s probably been that way since the first man stepped on the first rake. It’s wrong, of course. But it is funny. Especially if it is in the movies and the rake-stepper is somebody like Peter Sellers playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

Hitting somebody with a rake is not so funny. Not the same thing. Yet the rakes are flying.

During the current political campaign, some politicians have been slamming faceless, nameless “bureaucrats” with a rake, while they themselves have stepped on a few rakes of their own. Unelected feds are blamed for the nation’s fiscal woes, the growing national debt, and a broken and unfair tax system. And for nearly all other problems — foreign and domestic — that were created, more often than not, either by outside events or the politicians themselves. IRS workers don’t make the tax laws. Politicians write the tax code and create loopholes — sometimes called earmarks — that are often stupid and unfair, but tailored for a particular person, business or location.

Thursday’s column was about the political overuse of the B-word. B as in bureaucrat. As in incompetent, clock-watcher, leech on the public payroll, etc. You, not to put too fine a point on it. When some pols want to whip up a crowd, get headlines or direct attention away from some bone-headed play they made, they go after the bureaucrats. Some have promised/threatened to abolish entire agencies and the B-word people in them.

Some feds probably laugh it off. Others get angry. Many are hurt, especially if non-federal friends and relatives “kid” them about working for Uncle Sam. Or getting paid but not really doing much work for Uncle Sam. That falls into the category of getting hit by a rake.

So some people decided to bite back. Example:

”I spent over 30 years doing different jobs from finding and getting people treated for STDs; to facilitating experimental services for a senator’s constituents. I worked with migrant workers and assistant secretaries in various departments. Bureaucrat … you betcha!!!! A proud name along with thousands of others who did or do their jobs without ever getting their name in the paper (much less) above the fold in The Washington Post. As a retiree, I’m proud to tell folks, ‘I was a bureaucrat’ … heck they wouldn’t understand what I really did.” — Now just a Gator”

”The term ‘Bureaucrat’ is so overused. My grandmother said that people who cursed a lot (for her ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ were off limits) had ‘very limited vocabularies’ and often were not very bright. When you look at some of the clowns, who get elected but (who) have never had a ‘real’ job in their lives, you are dealing with some very limited people.” — Dr. Yes

One caller said he had spent most of his career “in national security.” He said, “The bureaucrats I worked with were top-notch professionals… Describing them as smart doesn’t begin to tell it.” He said when “you get to that level of intelligence, that combination of intelligence and experience and dedication, you’ve got a winning team.”

He said that dancer Fred Astaire once complimented partner Ginger Rogers by saying she did everything he did, except backward and in high heels. By that measure, he said, “Our agency often did things under cover, in the dark and more often than not got it right.” Some politicians, he said, “look for scapegoats… who are a lot smarter and braver than they are” but who can’t fight back.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

A queen bee has a non-barbed stinger.

Source: National Honey Bee Day

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