Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Our basic Bush problem and the long term fallout.

The man can't make solid decisions. That doesn't mean that they are always wrong. I agree with going into Iraq and some of the philosophy behind it, that is however it on Iraq. Why can't he? Its a mixed bag, exactly what mix, who knows. He isn't the sharpest knife in the shed. Yes, i know. It is hard separate that from management style or political calculation.

Organization, there are all these appointments that have to be made. He put in the person that fit, giving no thought to how those appointments fit together or how they fit into his administration. Factions proliferated much more than had been seen before. And as rarely seen before a mass of rampant activism kept the political divide wide open cutting off most ideas in the middle. One hopes a president has some grace under fire. In this case i suspect it had a much bigger role than it should.

The worst sin is having a leadership style of an absentee father. Delegation is a mark of a good leader, but waking away and not taking at least a passing glance back is not. Appointment of Bremer comes to mind. A leader must listen, build consensus and on a rare occasion take someone out to the wood shed. His leadership is often marked by " this faction is right you are wrong , now go away and get it done". This isn't rare wood shed use.

Our basic problem is his leadership of us, not the administration. We could recover if he just could not run the administration. The president and congress for that matter is meant to lead the people . You make decisions, explain why, listen to concerns and address them. Really the decisions should be made last, I'll take what i can get. Oh there is the wood shed to. Currently it is let someone else make the decisions, give a half explanation if any one has questions. If there are any more questions, restate and take them to the wood shed and beat them with the rolled up statement. Weak, Very Weak.

The US attorneys is one of those issues. Did he really make the decision, or did trust what others told him? Very little competent explanation has been given. Let the beating of rolled up paper begin. Just before the beginning of the war he did better with the people, internally it was an unholy nightmare. They explained, made a decision(rightly in my book), listen to some concerns and tried to address them. Concerns over troop numbers might have been pushed aside if latter mistakes had been avoided. The WMD stuff was a mistake. The rolled up paper was irrelevant. First it was wrong and leaning on the wall, several very nice bats. UN resolutions. Shootings in the no-fly zones. Oil for food. torture. There were even some around the corner we haven't talked about. Mainly Pressing our win in the cold war to stabilize the world and fix past mistakes.

It is idiotic to continue to dodge an issue in the light of facts, stand up, accept them and make a strong argument for your position. The decision may be right but you can't defend an idiot using his arguments. Conservatives tried for far to long not realizing that in this case no one listens to anyone except the idiot. Liberals have, i think, unbeknown to them created a useful idiot. Ask him a question and he starts waving increasingly useless rolled up papers around. Que the rest of the idiots and the power hungry from both sides and all levels. On the left idiots calling for war crimes and the power hungry calling for impeachment and promising the moon. On the right the idiots blaming our problems on gays and defending Bush and the power hungry over playing the fear card, gay marriage and oh some of that moon looks good. What?

In the chaos the argument finally shifted. Is been shifting for some time due to public apathy, continued pointless bickering, less transparency and an increasingly complex government and world. Pointing at the useful idiot in the White House and supposed helpless people being hurt by him the left was able to move the argument. Up until recently they just wanted to help a little more. A little has grown to a lot and is going from helping to taking care of. What do we call that, socialism. Call it what it is. It may not technically be but if the government is signing all the check, close enough. What happened to individualism and some personal responsibility. Massive hand outs didn't get us through WWII, Great Depression, Revolutionary War, the westward expansion and the cold war. Liberalism is fine but socialism is not well American.

Long term. Those that have become at lest somewhat politically aware after the 91 gulf war really started to pay attention after 9/11. What did they see. The idiot on one side the other promising the moon. This is were the last parts of an article from David Frum picks up. Just because he was part of the administration doesn't make him wrong. I will confess it got me thinking about all this. There was a time not that long ago that i could agree with parts of both sides, hopefully i won't be calling it the good old days. What really scares me is most in this group may not know any different and no one is talking core philosophy any more. Their idea of American politics are being set now, it can be changed down the road but it won't be easy. I am sicken by the though of a liberal vs leftist far far more than liberal vs conservative for the next 30 or 50 yrs or longer.

No comments: