Even corporate executives and government bureaucrats do it!

Update: the flames are out and the embers, cooling down, but Jeff Shapiro is fanning them a bit - http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2010/sep/15/jeff15-ar-505884/

If government were more about conserving the commonwealth than propping up corporations, the Tea Party would have less to p*ss about.

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The core of the computer infrastructure for the Commonwealth of Virginia has been down for almost a week. Time to line up the scapegoats.

The seeds of this disaster were laid by the Warner administration in 2003. In an attempt to shake off a dismal hardware infrastructure and a host of civil servants, the whole mess and $2.3 billion were handed off to Northrop Grumman. By late 2009, everybody said the state IT system was a disaster, and with the changing of the guard in Richmond, a veteran Republican legislator, Sam Nixon, was handed the job as state CIO. Sam had a rather intriguing solution. Instead of throwing the bums out, he, the Governor and the Legislature opted to renew the contact at more money. Absolutely brilliant. Nothing beats failure like consolidated failure. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/virginias-it-outage-doesnt-pass-management...

To VITA's credit, they made sufficient detail available on their web site - http://www.vita.virginia.gov/about/default.aspx?id=12596 - track down the responsible parties. It should be remembered that the whole point of outsourcing (privatization) was to reduce the public role. It is particularly uncivil to hold civil servants responsible when their power to do anything has been emasculated. So let's dish out some of the blame where it belongs (or does it?).

Northrop Grumman had the primary day to day responsibility for performance and they failed.

EMC provided the failing hardware but like BP, they were there to clean up the mess.

Sam Nixon presided over the continuation of a failed working relationship.

Bob McDonnell hand picked the state CIO and orchestrated the contract extension.

But like Pogo said to Albert, "we have met the enemy and he is us".

We are the ones who accepted the lie that private enterprise is always better than public enterprise.

We are the ones who accepted the lie that public servants are evil and corporate executives are good.

We are the ones who accepted the lie that bigger is better and consolidation is the way.

But hang on, the story will get better.