If one thing is clear by now (and something has to be), it is that the machinery of government is not so much uniformly nefarious as multifariously uniformed: the left hand knows what the right hand wants it to do, but there are proper procedures it should follow in the present circumstances, and the right hand respects that - so long as the left hand does in the end pick up the pieces. And it will.

LRB 11 September 2003 | PDF Download