Just wanted to make a brief comment on an aspect of the the whole nut-bomber terrorism thing that I haven't seen elsewhere. I want to talk about something fun, something exciting, something all the kids are raving about these days--yes, I'm referring to responsibility.
Obama, in his review of what happened, outlined "the intelligence and other government failures leading up to the botched December 25 terror bombing" (as summarized by CNN). He also said, "the buck stops with me."
That was him being the leader accepting responsibility. It's what he had to do, what most would insist is proper. And I agree, it is. But, let's be honest, he's not really accepting responsibility. He's dancing a little dance we all agree to ignore. He's simultaneously blaming others, blaming a system, and then playing the martyr in a way he knows no one but his most determined opponents will believe (and they would blame him no matter what he said). He's saying, "Here are the people and structures that caused this, people and structures that are not me or of my making--but I will allow you to blame me, wink-wink." We all know he doesn't mean, "this is my fault," we all know, at some level, he doesn't really expect us to believe it's his fault--and yet we all demand that he says it's his fault.
Just another little game of politics that we don't acknowledge but that we play. I'm not saying Obama should really accept all the blame--after all, the systems that were in place were in place when he took office. And I grant that some of his meaning was that he accepts responsibility for fixing the problems. Still...I think the whole thing is funny. It's a mass self-delusion--probably part of the mass self-delusion that we have that the president can really control many things. Perhaps the "buck stops here" thing is less about appearing a mature leader and more about maintaining the fiction of presidential omnipotence.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Best man for another job
Ezra Klein has an interesting aside today about elections and the skills of politicians. He tosses it off, probably because he considers it obvious, but I think, like a fibrous grass, it's worth some rumination. Boiled down, he says that we elect people for reasons that don't necessarily have anything to do with the job they're going to do. He takes the example of Chris Dodd, a career politician whose eyebrows never agreed with his hair that he had gotten older. Klein quotes Nick Baumann, who praised potential Dodd replacement Sidney Blumenthal for lacking Dodd's, for Baumann, troubling coziness with obese felines (the banking system). Klein points out that what Dodd did have going for him was a familiarity with Senate procedure and a talent, or at least learned ability, to get things done within that system.
But when do we ever elect people for reasons like that--you know, reasons like they might be good at the job? It's certainly not something that comes up much in campaigns--"Vote Dodd! He Understands Procedural Votes!" More importantly, we--meaning party activists and party officials--don't nominate people for those reasons. They don't sell. We nominate people who connect with voters, who arouse passion. Partly, as Klein says, we nominate ideology. More importantly, though, we nominate charisma. Again, maybe it's an obvious point, but it does seem strange that we don't approach the people that we as a people hire collectively the same way that we approach people that we hire in our jobs.
Then again, as nerds across the world eventually find out, popularity does not cease to matter after high school. Job-specific competence matters in job interviews, but how many times does the more charismatic person get the hire, regardless? Charisma matters in any interpersonal setting--from the job interview to the promotion decision. And charisma matters in job functions, too. In some way, the reasons we elect people--passion and charisma--are actually relevant to the job they will eventually do: a leader who can illicit passionate and positive responses from voters will likely be able to do so from other legislators, a key function in actually doing the job. Obama, for example, dripped charisma like Patrick Ewing dripped sweat, and, conceivably (though not necessarily so far in practice) he can also aim his overactive charisma glands at legislators, to help get things done. But what about organizing a bureaucracy? Delegating authority? Wading through massive amounts of information to extract the meaningful bits necessary for a decision? Choosing the right drapes for the Oval Office? Do we vote on those things? Certainly not directly. Obama did show, in organizing his campaign, many of those skills, but I doubt such considerations were on most people's minds when they voted for him. I think sometimes that we vote for qualified politicians almost in spite of ourselves--which is a scary thought.
But when do we ever elect people for reasons like that--you know, reasons like they might be good at the job? It's certainly not something that comes up much in campaigns--"Vote Dodd! He Understands Procedural Votes!" More importantly, we--meaning party activists and party officials--don't nominate people for those reasons. They don't sell. We nominate people who connect with voters, who arouse passion. Partly, as Klein says, we nominate ideology. More importantly, though, we nominate charisma. Again, maybe it's an obvious point, but it does seem strange that we don't approach the people that we as a people hire collectively the same way that we approach people that we hire in our jobs.
Then again, as nerds across the world eventually find out, popularity does not cease to matter after high school. Job-specific competence matters in job interviews, but how many times does the more charismatic person get the hire, regardless? Charisma matters in any interpersonal setting--from the job interview to the promotion decision. And charisma matters in job functions, too. In some way, the reasons we elect people--passion and charisma--are actually relevant to the job they will eventually do: a leader who can illicit passionate and positive responses from voters will likely be able to do so from other legislators, a key function in actually doing the job. Obama, for example, dripped charisma like Patrick Ewing dripped sweat, and, conceivably (though not necessarily so far in practice) he can also aim his overactive charisma glands at legislators, to help get things done. But what about organizing a bureaucracy? Delegating authority? Wading through massive amounts of information to extract the meaningful bits necessary for a decision? Choosing the right drapes for the Oval Office? Do we vote on those things? Certainly not directly. Obama did show, in organizing his campaign, many of those skills, but I doubt such considerations were on most people's minds when they voted for him. I think sometimes that we vote for qualified politicians almost in spite of ourselves--which is a scary thought.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Ideological Shorthand
This is somewhat yesterweek’s news, but I wasn’t keeping a blog then, so suck on it topicality! So…health care reform and the public option. (Right? We all want to hear about that some more, right?) The “Kill the Bill” noise sure has quieted down. Perhaps that’s because the liberals who wanted more progressive legislation have given up—after all, the Senate passed their bill and all that remains is conference between those two groups of mostly white men who talk to the lobbyists. It’s a done deal, so why bother?
Well, for one thing, if they really thought the bill sans-public option was a net negative for the country, then wouldn’t they still be protesting (i.e., angrily blogging)? Once congressmen begin the messy process of merging the two bills (hint, first get the House bill drunk then make sure the Senate bill pays for dinner), FireDogLake and suchlike may well reemerge with voices raised in all-caps righteousness.
I get the impression, though, from the liberal rags I read, that the bill-killing passion has largely waned. Perhaps proponents have realized the shallowness of the position—that it was in large part a political/rhetorical tactic, not a belief they truly held deeply. (Or perhaps I’m just projecting my own shallowness.)
My take is that the public option came to be largely a form of ideological shorthand—it meant “progressive.” With a ridiculously complicated bill with something like five gajabillion pages (rounded up), its “meaning,” to the general public, even to relatively engaged citizens, is kind of fuzzy. I’m guessing not many passionate progressives read the whole thing. For them, “public option” meant “close to single payer” which meant “FDR-style social programs.” It meant progressive. “Public option” is a lot easier to read (you just did it!) than a labyrinthine tangle of clauses, sub-clauses, and dick jokes snuck in by Chris Dodd.
What I noticed was that, for all the sound and fury on Daily Kos and Huffingtonpost about the bill’s failings, those progressives most likely to be policy wonks, i.e. most likely to have read more than the “public option” twitter version of the bill, saw a lot of good things worth passing: I’m talking about dudes like Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Matt Yglesias, and that little ball of sunshine, Paul Krugman.
Not all of us can muster the sheer nerditude to wade through all that legislative muck, as much as we would like to be engaged, so “public option” became a short hand for the kind of thing we wanted our government to do. Granted, this is not to say that the public option was meaningless—but it somehow came to “mean” everything, which was, at the very least, a distortion.
Lest I become a pot criticizing kettle hues—of course “public option” isn’t the only such shorthand we lazy idealists rely upon. There’re also such things as, I don’t know, “Democratic politician” or “not-George-W-Bush-politician,” or even the term "progressive" itself, and I’m as guilty as anyone of such intellectual laziness. And sometimes it’s not really even laziness—it’s just a consequence of an astonishingly complicated world—ideological shorthand is often necessary to take any position whatsoever. A little awareness, though, is a good thing. Otherwise, you can get attached to a name—or a policy—with little real meaning outside of your emotions.
Well, for one thing, if they really thought the bill sans-public option was a net negative for the country, then wouldn’t they still be protesting (i.e., angrily blogging)? Once congressmen begin the messy process of merging the two bills (hint, first get the House bill drunk then make sure the Senate bill pays for dinner), FireDogLake and suchlike may well reemerge with voices raised in all-caps righteousness.
I get the impression, though, from the liberal rags I read, that the bill-killing passion has largely waned. Perhaps proponents have realized the shallowness of the position—that it was in large part a political/rhetorical tactic, not a belief they truly held deeply. (Or perhaps I’m just projecting my own shallowness.)
My take is that the public option came to be largely a form of ideological shorthand—it meant “progressive.” With a ridiculously complicated bill with something like five gajabillion pages (rounded up), its “meaning,” to the general public, even to relatively engaged citizens, is kind of fuzzy. I’m guessing not many passionate progressives read the whole thing. For them, “public option” meant “close to single payer” which meant “FDR-style social programs.” It meant progressive. “Public option” is a lot easier to read (you just did it!) than a labyrinthine tangle of clauses, sub-clauses, and dick jokes snuck in by Chris Dodd.
What I noticed was that, for all the sound and fury on Daily Kos and Huffingtonpost about the bill’s failings, those progressives most likely to be policy wonks, i.e. most likely to have read more than the “public option” twitter version of the bill, saw a lot of good things worth passing: I’m talking about dudes like Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Matt Yglesias, and that little ball of sunshine, Paul Krugman.
Not all of us can muster the sheer nerditude to wade through all that legislative muck, as much as we would like to be engaged, so “public option” became a short hand for the kind of thing we wanted our government to do. Granted, this is not to say that the public option was meaningless—but it somehow came to “mean” everything, which was, at the very least, a distortion.
Lest I become a pot criticizing kettle hues—of course “public option” isn’t the only such shorthand we lazy idealists rely upon. There’re also such things as, I don’t know, “Democratic politician” or “not-George-W-Bush-politician,” or even the term "progressive" itself, and I’m as guilty as anyone of such intellectual laziness. And sometimes it’s not really even laziness—it’s just a consequence of an astonishingly complicated world—ideological shorthand is often necessary to take any position whatsoever. A little awareness, though, is a good thing. Otherwise, you can get attached to a name—or a policy—with little real meaning outside of your emotions.
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