ASCE Needs a Thomas Cromwell

The county needs infrastructure improvements.  Engineers need a Thomas Cromwell that gets stuff done - - the stuff that needs getting done is allocating more money to infrastructure improvements. Disconnecting people from their money requires the unique individual that is as "cunning as a bag of serpents" - - the word cunning (or serpent) doesn't come naturally to ASCE or engineers.

Cromwell is one of the most fascinating individuals in English history.  He is a man for all centuries that still is worthy of study.  The art of power is critical for engineering to study and appreciate.

From the New York Times today:

"No one is likely to push for Cromwell’s canonization. Even if he had remained faithful to Rome, there are few realistic prospects for a patron saint of realpolitik. Yet this is high season for him and his ilk. Dirty things done dirty, clean things done dirty — people who get stuff done, somehow or other, now rise in glory on stage and film. Perhaps the long stall of Washington politics has made us yearn for those grease-stained mechanics whose unseen guile, we imagine, would protect the engines of power from seizing up. Says Henry: “I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents.”

A few kindred figures might go in that same bag: Lyndon B. Johnson in Robert Caro’s biographies; Doug Stamper, the aide to Frank Underwood in “House of Cards” (not to mention Underwood himself); the William Seward of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” a cabinet secretary who hired lobbyists skilled in the hook and crook, in bribes and whiskey, to round up votes for emancipation.

You’d imagine that they would have relished the tactics of Cromwell as he marshaled support in the House of Commons for Henry’s split with Rome. On the day of one important vote, Cromwell instructs those in favor of a new act to stand on the right side of the chamber, and those against it on the left. When the opponents realize that Cromwell has exposed them with this maneuver, they shuffle across the aisle to join the backers of Henry, who is watching and “gives his councillor a grim nod of approval,” Ms. Mantel writes."

Check out Wolf Hall on PBS tonight.