Word: boren
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...