'The "best and the brightest"? Spare me'

"Some are arguing that if we prosecute Bush officials for torture, or reregulate the financial industry, talented people won't enter government or become bankers. No, they're not kidding." Obviously, the "best and brightest" haven't been running the show lately. (More like the greediest and most immoral or amoral, or even sociopathic.) See Salon here.

Having known a great many political appointees and politicians of both parties, I doubt any significant number of people would be deterred by such prosecutions from going into public service. Since Watergate, it's been generally known that if the president orders you to burgle the rival party's campaign headquarters you can go to jail if you obey him, and yet there is no shortage of talented people eager to serve in the executive branch, often at great sacrifice in time and income. . . .

Note that Haass uses the phrase "the best and the brightest" without scare quotes, even though David Halberstam used the term ironically, in his 1972 exposé of Vietnam War policymaking, "The Best and the Brightest." Haass uses the term without any trace of irony. So do many of those who argue that more restrictive regulation of the financial sector will lead to a flight of "the best and the brightest" from that dysfunctional industry. . . .

Where will the best and the brightest of the financial sector flee, to get away from regulation and earn obscenely high salaries? Not Canada, where tight regulation of banks prevented the kind of meltdown that has occurred in the U.S. Nor Australia, where similar strict banking regulations also spared that country's financial sector. London, Singapore or Dubai are sometimes mentioned as possible rival financial centers that would be eager to welcome the kind of overpaid financiers who wrecked the U.S. and global economy. Most Americans, I think, would agree that it is worth the risk. The voluntary expatriation of leading Wall Street geniuses might help to restore the U.S. economy and wreck potential rival financial capitals at the same time. . . .