Noonan on “The View From Gate 14″
Published by Al Adomite on April 25th, 2008
By Al
My boss often sends me columns from Peggy Noonan. I can only guess they bumped into each other frequently while both working for Bush 41.
Her column today on airport security reminds me of a discussion my MPA class had on public organizations when it came to the TSA’s administration of airport screening. In short, public administration differs from business administration in terms of rating effectiveness and fairness (often) equally with efficiency, which is different from business administration’s model of rating efficiency as a primary motive.
This was one side of the discussion that I remember, as posed by Noonan today:
And, as always: Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government’s way of showing “fairness,” of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.
The subject of airport screenings outlines the more general fundamental public policy aspects of the delivering governmental services and the (this is going to sound strange coming from the conservative on this blog) “values” government must work hard to “balance” (someone more liberal might use the word “preserve”) when administering services. And the lines get even more blurry when you start to privatize governmental services.
In the case of airport screening, would it be “fair” to only screen Arab Americans and foreign nationals? I would ask even our most conservative readers to really (really) think about their answer to that question. Yet, if you scroll through to the editorial on the WSJ’s site, you will see a three-year-old boy being screened with a handheld metal detector. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that the child is not part of jihad?
Being reasonable when balancing effectiveness, efficiency and fairness is never easy in public administration. It’s the fundamental values the County Board just used to evaluate the Sheltered Care issue, and it will be something I constantly refer to on this blog to help readers of all ideologies think about how government and public policy functions. (It’s just too bad I’m still not being graded by Professors Dolan and Hostetler.)
Here’s the thought: When evaluating efficiency, effectiveness and fairness in government, are there areas of government where one might consistently prioritize one value over the others? The three are rarely in balance, and “balance” is certainly not in tune with one party’s ideology or the other’s.
Filed under County Issues, Housekeeping, State Issues
April 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
[...] scored With this post’s casual mention of time his boss spent in the White House with Bush [...]
April 28th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Remember that the jihadists even used the mentally disabled as vehicles for their bombs. So using a child is not too far fetched.
But, Israel does have a very sophisticated airport screening process. Considering some likely terrorist characteristics is probably not out of line.