After the Christmas bombing attempt Andrew Sullivan loudly called for Janet Napolitano’s resignation. He now admits that his reaction was “ill-advised, even dumb in retrospect.” Fine. But then he says this:
But once we have very specific instances of failure, after a thorough investigation, it seems to me good management to hold individuals accountable. In the private sector for the most part, profound failures of this sort that could have led to the deaths of hundreds of people would lead to resignations and firings.
Maybe so, but I wouldn’t hold up the private sector as the model for this attitude. Not in America, anyway. As near as I can tell, it takes riots in the streets just to get apologies out of private sector executives who are responsible for disasters on their watch, let alone resignations. See Bhopal, release of methyl isocyanate by Union Carbide in, and Wall Street, collapse of, for more on this.
