WH: "Beware of Potomac Fever" - drink more kool-aid!

[paineinthearse]

The White House's "Resources for the President's Leadership Team" website -
http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/index.html - contains two articles describing the symptoms if "Potomac Fever", asking staffers to take the necessary precautions to avoid the "disease".

"Please help prevent "Potomac Fever," a major DC malady" it implores.

The suggested cure? DRINK MORE KOOL-AID!

"Prevention/Treatment: Frequently listen to or reading the President's vision for America. Also review the writings and remarks of past Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Listen to their principles, message, and vision."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/potomacfever.html

Potomac Fever?
We need your help to better diagnose and treat a major DC malady.

The end of summer brings on health concerns such as fall allergies, common colds, sore throats, the coming flu season, and even holiday weight gain. While these concerns are by no means trivial there is an even more significant health concern that may be impacting you or some of the people you love and respect. It's called Potomac Fever. Following is some information to assist you in recognizing, preventing, and combating Potomac Fever.

General Symptoms include: Extreme disorientation, memory loss, and occasional delusions of grandeur.

Symptoms can present as follows: An individual suffering from Potomac Fever may have an inflated notion of self worth and may use phrases such as:
- "let's get one of the cars and drivers here to take us to dinner"
- "hello, I'm THE Assistant Secretary of ________" (vs. President Bush's Assistant Secretary of ____________ )
- "this issue is very important to MY agenda"
- "this hotel room is not big enough for the Assistant Secretary of _________"
- "I have the ugliest building in Washington"

The individual may suffer from delusions of grandeur:
- words like million and billion no longer seem so large
- the individual may believe he/she could be effective if only OMB would loosen up on the budget strings
- the individual may get upset at related industry gatherings when other people don't immediately know who he/she is
- the individual may be continually focused on his or her next position/appointment
- the individual has more material and pictures of themselves on their "I love me" wall than paper in their policy files
- office hallway pictures and blow-ups are two times life size

The individual may have incoherent speech. They may:
- frequently use words like paradigm and synergy
- frequently use acronyms and code words when talking about government programs……at home or at social occasions.

The individual may suffer bouts of memory loss:
- they may forget who appointed them to their position, the person whose name is on their appointment paper
- they may forget that they serve at the pleasure of the President

Prevention/Treatment: Frequently listen to or reading the President's vision for America. Also review the writings and remarks of past Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Listen to their principles, message, and vision.

Visit any small town outside the DC media market, go into a local store or restaurant to ask how many Cabinet officials and senior staff members the person waiting on you can name. Watch the local news in the same small town, notice how many seconds they devote to the most important issue you are currently working on.

Ask your children or siblings if they know how important a person you are.

Consider the following two questions.


Which of the following describes the picture above?
A. An American four door sedan
B. A common government vehicle
C. MY car


Which of the following describes the picture above?
A. A holiday dinner setting
B. A formal dinner setting
C. Everyday lunch

If you answered C to both questions and/or if you suffer from any of the symptoms described above, you may indeed be suffering from Potomac Fever. Please carefully review the suggested preventions/treatments.

Also please help us identify other symptoms and treatments for this terribly debilitating DC disease. You've all known people inflicted with the illness. Use the email feedback system to suggest other symptoms and treatments that we haven't thought of; so we can publish the expanded list for everyone's benefit.

We appreciate your help in this important effort.
Signed,

Clay Johnson

and... "Additional symptoms of "Potomac Fever," provided by members of the President's team"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/potomacfever2.html

Additional Symptoms of Potomac Fever
After reading about Potomac Fever, members of the President's team have identified additional symptoms.

Symptom: "I'm too busy to attend that meeting -- I'm sending my confidential assistant to take notes."

Symptom: Excessive concern about the size of one's office space. Evidenced by the counting of tiles above cubical spaces to ensure the size of the cubical matches the entitled space.

Symptom: "Them" as in career staff versus "Us" as in political appointees.

Symptom: The desire to construct entire speeches out of acronyms.

One last note of warning, the young may be more susceptible to Potomac Fever. As one team member notes,

"The affliction often attacks the young who have yet to discover who they are as individuals. They believe that Senators, Mayors, Governors, etc. rush to take their telephone calls because it is they who are calling. They fail to understand, it is the office they represent that gets their calls answered. These individuals go through a difficult adjustment period once they leave an Administration and suddenly no one returns their call. Many crash and burn once they leave."

[atommom]

1. WTF? The CURE for that is to listen to Bush?

I think the WH has had an inflated sense of self-worth for quite a few years now...

[Mnemosyne]

2. A treasure paine, thanks! n/t

[paineinthearse]

4. Thank you, but beware!!!!!!

I found by using the WH's internal search engine for "Karen Hughes".

Beware the WH (and all other .gov) website. Its privacy statement declares that IP addresses, as well as the sites you come from and go to, are captured.

[Katidid]

5. Could you explain what

"the sites you come from and go to, are captured." Thanks ... and sorry to be such a dunce head.

[paineinthearse]

6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/privacy.html

White House Website Privacy and Security Policy

Thank you for visiting the White House Website and reviewing our privacy policy. Our privacy policy is clear: We will collect no personal information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us.
Here is how we handle information about your visit to our website:

White House Internet Security Policy

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

The Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;
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[Katidid]

8. Thanks for answering

:hi: Gee, and they are right in your face about it too ... Interesting.

[Mnemosyne]

7. Seriously?! It was on the gov website??

I only go to Thomas to check on bills, the other places make me feel dirty!

[paineinthearse]

9. Sub-area of www.whitehouse.gov

http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/potomacfever.html

&

http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/potomacfever2.html

[Gman]

3. Sounds like good stuff

that could be applied to any WH administration and/or even state governments regardless of the letter behind the governor's name.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

10. This is some cheese-assed shit

It's a sad day to see our highest level of government being, no, TRYING to be, every bit as cheesey, dork-assed, snarky, STUPID, and obscenely invasive into people's everyday lives, as the corporate world.

[Radical Activist]

11. Potomac fever IS a problem

The Washington beltway mindset and conventional wisdom are destructive to America and the Democratic Party. The DNC and Democrats in Congress need to hire more people who haven't been living in DC or the East Coast.
Bush's definitions and cures are pretty screwed up though.

[MADem]

13. I have to agree, having seen it in all of its iterations!!!

And you do know, all of these assistant secretaries and what not have the title HONORABLE before their name--as in the Honorable B. Hind!!! And some get real bullshit if you don't use it! I have been on the receiving end of complaints about perks--they sure can grouse when they don't think they are getting their due--and all it does is show me that political appointees are for the most part assholes.

I'd like a president who picks his appointees for their well documented, firmly established KNOWLEDGE of the area they are expected to oversee, not as a reward for fund raising or because the little shit is the child of a crony. It gets very tiring for career civil servants and uniforms in DOD to have to carry a new fool for six months to a year, and then listen to their halfassed ideas based on incomplete knowledge, and then be forced to IMPLEMENT their directives, knowing full well that eventually you'll have to dismantle their foolish schemes. The smart DC rat throws nothing out--you just may need it to repair the damage....

I swear, the reason they are so high handed is because deep in their hearts they KNOW what the workforce thinks of them...

[John_H]

12. LOL!Only the Chimp is allowed to be an imperious ass

SES's and Schedule C's thinking they are Princesses and Princes of Wales was not invented by the BFEE, but it looks as though it's gotten so out of hand that they felt the need to put this up on whitehouse.gov. Maybe the WH should stop issueing member-of-congress-like pins to it's staff, which would have been laughed out of the Clinton Admin.

A little Inside-the beltay fun for DC DUers: The next time you see an obvious bush political at your favorite watering hole--Identifiable either by their imperial lapel pins or the ID-tucked-into-the-shirt-pocket-so-everyone-knows-how-important-I-am (which no career civil servant would do). Go up to them and ask, right in front of the woman they're hitting on, "Hey, aren't you the Deputy Administrator of the FAA?" They will then have to fess up to their pissant position. The facial expressions are usually big fun.

[MADem]

14. Yeah, for the life of me I never understood these clowns

...who wave their credentials about like a King's favor. PUT THEM AWAY. They may as well have a sign on their forehead that says "COMPENSATING."

It's also an OPSEC violation. I've worked places where you had to conceal your credentials if there was a photographer in the room, never mind leaving them waving in the breeze once you left the facility!

[Radical Activist]

15. Apparently they only work for Bush, not the government or American people.

- "hello, I'm THE Assistant Secretary of ________" (vs. President Bush's Assistant Secretary of ____________ )

Just one more sign of how fascist these people are.

[applegrove]

16. Once again try to paint the elite puppet as just and independent outsider.

What a bunch of liars. Even the elites in Washington are not as connected as Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, etc. I mean how often was Kenneth Lay on the phone until he got arrested?

The person who wrote this 1) has not sense of humor 2)is trying to be friendly to all the privileged in Washington (the humor would not be so genteel if the writers had talent, were actually trying to punch through to a truth).

All of this humor has to do with things that really are very superficial and not very important in the lives of Americans. This is fluff. Power in Washington actually has to do with how the lives of millions of Americans will be affected. I think most elected representatives intrinsically know that. The person who came up with this humor does not.

The author does also not seem to have a very strong sense of the emotional value of words. That implies sociopathy...since in an MRI a sociopath cannot tell the difference between emotional words and non-emotional ones. They all look the same to to a sociopath!

[mikelewis]

17. According to this Bush has Potomac Fever - can he use this as a defense

in his impeachment trial?

[paineinthearse]

18. That would be a unique defense.

I think he would use something that is more time honored, such as the insanity defense.