And even to assess political success you'd have to be comparing it to the actual goal. Obviously you're not privy to that.

Bravo. This is a common misundertanding. Sowell points out that bureaucrats are not 'incompetent' as people often allege, but that they simply follow the incentives presented to them. This is then claimed to be incompetence by people who think that the bureaucrats should be following their nominal aims rather than the aims for which they are rewarded.