Heckuva job, everyone!

While doing what we used to call my morning calisthenics the other day, I listened to a series of radio reports that made me want to quit working out and bury my head in a platter of chocolate-chip pancakes slathered in whipped cream and maple syrup.

The first one was about the guy with the Ebola virus who had landed in Dallas. Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), swore up and down that there was absolutely, positively no way on God’s green earth that anyone who came in contact with this guy could have been infected because he didn’t have a fever when he got on the plane.

{mosads}The second story was about how the Secret Service, whose main job is to keep assassins and kidnappers away from the president and his family, allowed an armed man to hop the White House fence, enter the building and scoot down a hallway and into the East Room before they got around to apprehending him.

The third story was about the race to fill the Michigan Senate seat being vacated by Carl Levin (D), who is retiring.

You see where I’m going with this? First, the people who are in charge of keeping us safe from infectious diseases tell us not to worry. Then we learn that the people in charge of keeping the First Family safe were asleep at the switch. The story of official incompetence at the Secret Service does not inspire confidence in official competence at the CDC, to say nothing of airport security personnel in Monrovia, Liberia.

So then, given this mood of skepticism about official competence engendered by the first two stories, it’s hard to work up any belief that it will matter in the slightest whether the Democrats or the Republicans control the Senate after the November election.

I recently ran across this case study in journalism ethics: You’re a cops reporter. While you’re perusing the police blotter over at the station, a guy in an orange jumpsuit walks past you on the way toward the exit. Do you:

• Try to arrest his progress toward the door lest he be an escaping prisoner? 
• Alert the cops that they may be losing an inmate? 
• Or get on with your work, assuming that the guy would not be allowed to wander away unless he were authorized to do so?

Our class discussion of this case touched on concern for your own safety if you were to impede the progress of a dangerous person vs. concern for the public’s safety if you were to allow this possibly dangerous person to leave unmolested. The one sure thing: You cannot assume that the people in charge know what they’re doing.

The conspiracy theorists among us ascribe evil intent to those who do great harm. The truth may be scarier: The guy who cut us off on the freeway wasn’t trying to ruin our day; he’s just a bad driver. The Penn State administrators who failed to call the law on Jerry Sandusky weren’t actively orchestrating a cover-up; they were passively hoping the whole unpleasant business would go away. All the smart guys who drag us into unnecessary wars aren’t trying to ruin the lives of innocent people; they’re actually stupid guys.

Or look at it this way: The airplane mechanic who commits an act of sabotage is exceedingly rare. The one who fails to check that or tighten this because he’s impaired or distracted or lazy is probably more common.

So let’s go back to that Senate race in Michigan. I used to argue with those who held a Tweedledum-Tweedledee view of the two main political parties. I would concede that on the continuum from far left to far right, each tacked close to the center, with the elephants only a few ticks to the right of the donkeys. But those few ticks of ideological difference could manifest in the world as major policy differences.

I realized, listening to the report on the race, that I no longer believe it will make any difference whether the Democrat, Rep. Gary Peters, or the Republican, Terri Lynn Land, is elected next month because I no longer believe in the U.S. Congress as an effectual governing body.

I don’t mean to pick on the CDC’s Tom Frieden or on the two Michiganders vying for that Senate seat. It’s the general erosion of confidence that any of these people can be believed or depended on that I speak of.

More syrup and whipped cream, please.

Frank eats his breakfasts in State College, Pa., home of Penn State University, where he teaches journalism.