Jack Kennedy spent his term so stoned on painkillers to treat his ruptured disk that he approved the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Ronald Reagan spent both of his terms nodding off in jelly-bean-induced comas. Barack Obama spends more time on vacation than he does in the White House.

So who actually runs the country? The cabinet.

These worthies represent the most skilled sycophants the Maximum Leader can identify. While a few actually know something useful, a surprising number lead their elephantine bureacracies into the future with panache and total ignorance of the subjects their Departments are supposed to oversee. Would you like to be Secretary of Commerce? Then just contribute ten million dollars to the super-PAC that gets your man elected, and you will have your appointment in two shakes of a deposit slip.

Of course, that’s not enough if you belong to the wrong interest group. Increasingly, cabinet appointments provide the opportunity for Dear Leader to demonstrate how inclusive he is. There are now female positions, black positions, hispanic positions, union positions.

That’s why confirmation hearings are so much fun!

Not only do these folks stumble through substantive questions by reciting focus-group-tested sound bites, but they excel in denying that they ever said the inconvenient things that raise their ugly heads, even if there is a video of the politically incorrect comment being  projected on the hearing room wall. They follow the Groucho Marx dictum: “What are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes.” More often than not, the eyes do NOT have it.

Fortunately, most cabinet officials are too busy traveling around and collecting hundred grand speaking fees to wreak all the havoc their non-existent skill sets could facilitate.

So who actually runs the country? The chief bureaucrats.

Yes, that’s right, the devotees of CYA, counting the seconds until they can retire and collect their excessive pensions and enjoy their gold-plated medical benefits. There they sit, writing ever more convoluted rules to govern our every action. But they have very little experience in the industries they oppress, so they have to look outside for advice.

So who actually runs the country? The lobbyists.

With the exception of Jack Abramoff and a few other throwbacks, lobbyists are not bagmen. The are hypnotists. They ooze their way through the corridors of power, forked tongues tasting the air, searching for the weak-minded and persuadable. However, it’s getting to be a tougher and tougher job, what with silly little items like the Freedom of Information Act, which uncovers so many things that ought to be decently hidden. So the lobbyists are losing power.

So who actually runs the country?

Nobody.

We are in free fall, jerking spasmodically like a recently decapitated chicken. Our supposed leaders writhe excruciatingly across the canvas of the televison screen, assuring us that they know what they are doing. They don’t.

On the other hand, this is really good!

What would things be like if these turkeys could actually run things? We would all be marching down the street in lockstep, singing songs of solidarity, behaving properly, sort of like the Stepford Wives.

Incompetence has its virtues.