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Al Gore, talking about the Bush Presidency. From a profile of the former Vice-President in The New Yorker:

“The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.

“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”

There was a lovely example today of President Bush’s jobless economic recovery–you know, the one being driven by efficiency.

Alaska Airlines had some sort of melt-down at the Seattle airport today, and it appears to have been caused by a lack of personnel (the employees who have been axed in the name of efficiency).

My sister and her family were heading down to Puerto Vallarta for a vacation. Instead of arriving to sunshine and fresh margaritas this afternoon, they spent eight hours in lines at Seattle-Tacoma airport.

In the end, they were sent home and won’t be leaving for vacation until Monday. Eight hours wasted at the airport, two days of vacation time down the drain, and absolutely no compensation from the airline for a problem caused by the company’s staffing decisions.

After waiting in the electronic ticket check-in line for two hours (so much for do-it-yourself service making things more efficient), they finally got to the counter after their flight had already left. Everyone else in line seemed to be in similar circumstances, according to my sister. Upon getting to the front of the line, they were sent to another line for re-booking. They spent more than six hours–six hours!–in this line.

What happened? According to reports from KOMO TV news, too many people showed up too early (huh?), there weren’t enough employees to deal with the situation, and by 9am, 500 people had missed their flights.

When economists and talking-heads chatter on about efficiency, aren’t they really talking about increased profits for shareholders. Surely there’s an inverse relationship going on in terms of efficiency vs. customer support and satisfaction. And aren’t these kinds of things going to happen more and more often as corporations get more and more “efficient?”

The customer service representative waiting at the head of the six-hour-long re-booking line said the airline was “fully staffed.” Sure, it probably was fully staffed–at the anemic levels deemed most efficient to the company. Another Alaska Airlines employee was being a little more honest and proactive about the situation.

According to my sister, she was walking the line handing out the company’s customer complaint phone number and encouraging people to call and vent about the low staffing levels that are making Alaska Airlines so efficient.