Excuses Excuses Excuses

A former Administration adviser and one time college president has written in the FT:

Large-scale information technology projects in the private sector are hard enough even without an organised constituency for failure.  

From an economist, well it still makes no sense. I have done a few large scale systems. For example when we delivered roaming in cellular with some 500+ tax jurisdictions and the like it was quite complex. But it cost $24 million, not $700 million. Heads rolled for mistakes. Yes it was hard because it was just a plain stupid design! One should not try and compare this to the real world. Government project never are.

He continues:

Many people regard it as an obligation when their country is at war – even a war they oppose – to support the troops. In the same way history will not judge kindly those who, having lost a political debate over policy, try to undermine programmes when they are being enacted.
The troops are one thing, the incompetents in Government are another. To paraphrase the current head of the administration; elections have consequences. One party controls two parts but the third part is controlled by another party. That is the consequence of an election. One cannot take credit for one and blame the other. It is illogical. But alas logic never becomes a politician.