“I’m not an expert…” You’re also not a tool. Well, not much.
I’m not an expert.
Well… how… but… what… why…
Shouldn’t the head of the DEA be an expert on drugs?
Rosie, yer doin’ a heck of a job!
You’d have hoped so. Fucking hell.
“I’m not an expert”
“hmm, what’s that? ooohhh that’s what it stands for!!”
Or, at the very least, to have people on his staff who are experts, and to maybe, just maybe have conferred with them on a question so fundamental to his mission and so predictably to be asked of him.
Sort of. It’s a legal, administrative position and doesn’t necessarily mean you need a PhD in the field or anything along those lines. That said, you should definitely be familiar and well versed and listen to what the actual experts say.
Either way this is political hedging until he has more time to be confident of the direction the wind is blowing.
Oh, he knows damn well it’s not even remotely as dangerous, but that would undermine the narrative.
Anyone heading up a massive police force with the explicit mandate to enforce drug laws and who doesn’t know the truth or is willing to lie to the public should be immediately removed.
Time for some Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
Um, then can you be fired? Please?
He’s the head of a police force.
Police enforce laws.
The ones who make laws should have some expertise in the subject though, or at least have access to expertise, which they probably do.
Yup. This law was made back in the days of Nixon. It was done entirely against the advice of the experts at the time. Look up the Schedule 1 drug thing. It was supposed to be temporary, pending the outcome of a study, but ignored said study results.
This, with impunity. Fucker, you run the DEA. The Drug Enforcement Administration. It’s kinda your direct title to BE a fucking expert on what you are administering. Drugs. If you are not an expert, someone fire this ass. Now.
I am really, really fucking tired of this copout bullshit excuse crap- “…but I am not a scientist”, “…but I am not an expert”.
There are plenty of scientists and experts in the world on major issues like these. They are not mystical fucking unicorns only seen by a full moon, 2 left in the world. They are plentiful. The validity of their opinions over yours is even copped to by you, yourself. The “but” implies that they would know best or better than you. So if even the morons who disagree with them seem to get hired, why does this keep happening? Hire a fucking scientist to do the job! There are plenty of pharma engineers that know better.
But then I guess that’s the point. I hear Rob Ford is a drug expert. Maybe we can hire him? I’m sure he’d at least be entertaining while being useless, a step up from this ass.
Well it doesn’t take an expert to be a good leader - in fact, many brilliant wonks are terrible administrators. But, as @halfofBoingBoing pointed out, there are plenty of experts around. The DEA denies their findings as vigorously as ExxonMobil denies climate change.
The more I think about it, the more that analogy worries me.
While everybody is debating the necessity of expertise to administer, I’m just going to sit back here and say in response to his brilliant comment; “Ka-DUH! Ya think?”.
It’s a sad day when this is considered a) a step forward for the DEA, and 2) a comment worth uttering.
Not really. He just runs things. Basically just a manager. It’s whoever makes the laws that should be experts or at least consult (and actually listen to) experts.
“I’m not an expert” simply means -“I’ve been paid to look the other way”
