1974.
Teenage acne left me with a face you could hear.
Heredity blessed me with a helmet of hair.
And, my elders left me a President I was ashamed of.
These were the high holy days of Watergate, and a nation that had so many other things to work on was distracted by a constitutional crisis involving hush money, blackmail, tapes and executive privilege.
Fast forward 33 years.
It's 2007 and a nation with so many things to do is instead distracted by a looming constitutional face-off involving "executive privilege" which, to me, is a tool that's used by Presidents to either cover up something a) illegal or b) embarrassing.
The mandate George W. Bush claimed in 2004 is squandered amid approval ratings in the low 30's--the lingering war didn't help, nor did Katrina, Scooter Libby, and now, the firing of federal judges for what appear to be political motives.
President Bush dolled out jobs to unqualified buddies like former FEMA head Michael Brown and longtime pal Alberto Gonzalez who's stay as Attorney General is very much in doubt. Bush, like Nixon three decades ago, is surrounded by a cadre of like-thinkers and yes-people who are valued more for loyalty than gray matter.
Many of us go to Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" for laughs, but he had a great moment of clarity the other night with former U-N Ambassador John Bolton. Stewart cited Abraham Lincoln as an example of a chief executive who filled his cabinet with political foes and direct competitors in hopes of finding great ideas and building a consensus.
Bolton said, no, not so.
So, the next night, Stewart run up historian Doris Kearns Goodwin who wrote a bestselling book on just that very treatise. She assured Stewart that his take, indeed, was right--that Lincoln built a team of rivals that eventually worked to save the union.
Maybe our current President should take a ride to Barnes and Noble, pull out the family credit card and buy himself the Lincoln story. Or, he should maybe heed the advice Ms. Goodwin offered at the end of her chat with Stewart, when she remembered her old boss, Lyndon Johnson. LBJ had a crude but pithy take on the concept of surrounding yourself with friendlies vs. having some foes amongst on the staff:
"I'd rather have my enemies in my tent, pissing out, than on the outside, pissing in."
See the Stewart/Goodwin chat here:
2 comments:
The only way to make true progress is to listen to others who may have a different point of view. I know that I am naive, but that is why I would love for every state Supreme Court, and federal for that matter, to be evenly divided conservative/liberal. Perhaps people would learn more and make better decisions.
Oh, Pollyanna.
Amen. Too many of us only want "echo chambers" in the media and in politics--voices that mimic our own, without challenge. Sad, with all the options out there.
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