Avoidance of Accountability Quotes

The government don't want to talk about the consequences of the choices they make. They pretend there aren't any consequences.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice

The perfect bureaucrat … is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

Admitting weakness seems to be such a severe psychic threat for Bush that when he makes a mistake it's safer just to reinforce it. The strategy creates a perverse system of rewards and punishments.

I personally think that if you deny something or if you hide something you're inadvertently admitting it's wrong.

You can duck responsibility within your committee; you can blame somebody else's committee, you can disappear behind the facade of your party allegiance ..., or you can blame it on the other House; and if none of those happens to ... work, you can dump it on the shoulders of bureaucracy and red tape ...

It's like a fugue of evaded responsibility.

'Referring the matter to a committee' can be a device for diluting authority, diffusing responsibility and delaying decisions.