Danger: Residuators at Work

By Hugh Sidey

James H. Boren has been sitting beside his Washington telephone waiting for Jimmy Carter to call. Unless there is some contact within the next few days, Boren and his followers will assume that the coming Administration is headed toward trouble, another victim of the federal bureaucracy.

"Any President who sets foot in this town without a full briefing on dynamic inaction, decision-postponement patterns and creative status quo cannot go very far," says Boren. "I've studied Carter, and I think he has great potential if he will just listen. If he does not, he will be residuated* into oblivion. Carter must understand that in this city we cut red tape lengthwise. He should know the difference between vertical and linear mumbling (a mumble can never be quoted). After all, bureaucrats are the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing and mean it."

In any other city, Boren would be little more than a lovable prankster. But his continuing spoof of bureaucratic outrages has hit the mark so well that he has gained semi-status by using one of his own dicta: "If you can't beat them, don't just join them, lead them."

A Ph.D. from the University of Texas and a nine-year bureaucrat, Boren is now head of an engineering and design firm but spends half his time lecturing, writing books and otherwise flourishing as "Founder, President and Chairperson of the Board of the International Association of Professional Bureaucrats (INATAPROBU)." He has an office in the National Press Building, a supply of wall-poster maxims ("Nothing is impossible until it is sent to a committee") and an estimated 970,38 enthusiastic members in 17,3 countries. They have dinners, annual meetings ("If you don't have anything to do, do it with style") and seminars ("Bureaucrats never change the course of the ship of state, they simply adjust the compass"), and occasionally present learned treatises among themselves ("On Capturing the Bold Spirit of Irresolution").

Boren predicts new life for his movement with the coming of the Carter people. Carter has pledged to reorganize the Government, and many of Boren's terms and analytical devices may be put to new use. "The measurement of the gestation period of an original thought in a bureaucracy is still pending," he points out. One Boren policymaking imperative could be established at places like the Brookings Institution. It goes: "When a bureaucrat makes a mistake and continues to make it, it usually becomes the new policy."

Publishers, Boren exults, may now have to accept some of his new words. Take "fuzzify." That is a verb that he defines as "the presentation of a matter in terms that permit adjustive interpretation. Particularly useful when the fuzzifier does not know what he or she is talking about, or when the fuzzifier wants to enunciate a non-position in the form of a position." Adds Boren: "One must always remember that freedom from action and freedom from purpose constitute the philosophical bases of creative bureaucracy."

If Boren never makes it to the new President's side, he may do just as much good with the underlings. Says he: "Real bureaucratic leaders, of course, are always second in line, because they shove someone else out front to test the water. The one out front usually bears the title of special assistant."

He is a little worried about Carter's seemingly humble posture. "After all," says Boren, "pomposity is the seat of bureaucratic power." But with a snort, a wave and a chuckle, Boren goes on his rounds through the changing city. He even has some tax advice for Carter. Noting that as more bureaucrats come into existence, there are fewer and fewer taxpayers to support them, INATAPROBU has proposed worldwide tax reform that would give tax incentives to the decreasing number of taxpayers to encourage them to work harder to support the increasing number of those who do not work.

Then again, muses Boren, "study a problem long enough and it may go away. If you are going to be a phony, be sincere about it."

*Residuate: a "Borenverb" meaning to burrow into a fixed, immovable position while maintaining a low profile. Residuation is a survival practice often used by bureaucrats during changes of Administration.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.