Now Wait Just a Minute
Well now really. I can’t just leave this sort of thing sitting there unopposed. It would be a dereliction of duty. I like jokes and provocations as well as the next person, but there is a limit. There are some things up with which I shall not put, to paraphrase Winny.
Or is the objection that he lacks self-knowledge; he should realise he isn’t very bright – if he isn’t – and, therefore, not have stood for the presidency? If so, let’s have a reality check here. Bloggers are hardly paragons of self-knowledge…And, anyway, since when does a lack of self-knowledge justify the kind of opprobrium levelled at Bush?
What have bloggers got to do with anything? Is that the opposite of Bush? Bloggers? You have Bush and his fans on the one hand, and bloggers on the other? Hardly. So why bring them up? Eh? But more to the point – bloggers are one thing, and presidents of the US are another. To say the least. What does it matter if bloggers lack self-knowledge or are not very bright? At least, what does it matter compared to the way it matters if the president of the US (the single most powerful human being on the planet, unfortunately) is? Bloggers don’t run anything, they don’t have the ability to launch nuclear weapons, they can’t start wars, they can’t nominate Supreme Court justices, their foreign policies don’t make anything happen (except possibly indirectly by helping to shape opinion). So the standards are simply different, that’s all. Very different indeed.
They make lots of linguistic errors, just like Dubya. Because that’s the way we speak. We start sentences, change our minds about what we want to say halfway through, alter tenses, don’t finish what we started to say, and generally talk in a way which makes little sense when transcribed onto paper.
Give me a break. Watch any bit of old tv footage (or listen to old radio archives) of unrehearsed unscripted Clinton and then listen to Bush. Everyone knows there is a gigantic difference, and it is all too obvious what the difference implies. Clinton has a functioning brain and a lot of knowledge; when he is asked a question he can sort through his knowledge quickly and give a coherent, relevant, interesting, complicated answer. I’ve heard and seen him do it many times, and so has everyone else. (And by the way I’m not a total fan of Clinton, but I do think all presidents should be clever the way he is as a minimal qualification, not as a luxury item.) Bush can’t do anything remotely comparable, not even with a ‘cat sat on the mat’ type question, let alone one that relies on some knowledge. There are degrees in these things, and no doubt some philosophers and scientists do make lots of linguistic errors (though no doubt my colleague’s experience of the matter is skewed, because the people he interviews are rendered peculiarly unable to speak coherently by the very fact of being interviewed by my colleague, for what sinister or impressive reason I leave to your surmises), but some make more than others and some make fewer. People who run for president ought to be good at thinking and talking before they even think about running; it’s that simple.
However, I do agree with JS’s point [you know, the point he didn’t make, because it was in an email not in the N&C – that point] that it’s the system that’s at fault. It is indeed. It’s a frighteningly disfunctional election system for such a powerful country. There just isn’t any mechanism to eliminate the blindingly incompetent, for one thing. That’s not good.
” I do agree with JS’s point that it’s the system that’s at fault.”
Well that’s going to confuse people, since I didn’t make that point. (That was email!)
Oh – oops. So you didn’t. My mistake.
Well don’t blame me, I’m thick, I can’t help it! So vote for me.
OB,
I like to judge a person, especially a politician, by his deeds and not by his fine ,loquacios, verbose, silk tongued speeches.
Dubya communicates through his strong actions. Slick Willy charmed the pants off everyone but was a mendacious hypocrite (think Monica L.)
Not all intelligence, not even the most important part of it, is based on verbal dexterity. So, though it pains me, I have to agree with your colleague Jerry S.
I love you, Fryslan.
Fryslan,
True. Eloquence can be misused to prettify bad actions. (That’s a theme Shakespeare was particularly fond of, interestingly enough – as were a lot of Renaissance writers.) But speeches are partly deeds, too. And the fact that eloquence can be misused is not, in my view, a reason to choose the most inept speaker and thinker one can find for that particular job. Because speaking and thinking just are some of the tasks the president has to perform.
And as for W’s strong actions – actions don’t become good just by being strong. W prides himself on his decisiveness and his refusal to reflect – but that just means he decides too quickly and then obstinately adheres to his own decision, however bad it may have been.
OB,
And by the way:
“There just isn’t any mechanism to eliminate the blindingly incompetent, for one thing. That’s not good.”
First, I’d like to see every presidential hopeful take a mandatory lie-detector test. But, barring that, I guess we’ll have to rely on the voters (now that’s an *original* idea!)
Second, talking of verbal skills, just see where Adolf H (of 1932-1945 fame) got
the world.
Third, intelligence untempered by moral rectitude will only end up getting mad scientists (dr. Starngelove types), and their political equivalents, into power.
Once again, so called (verbal) intelligence isn’t all it’s made out to be.
So what are your specific suggestions for a vetting system, huh?
OB,
I cross posted, sorry.
Yes, competence is important. But does one take a “drivers test”, for example some kind of computer program that simulates events and tests how you react?
We live in a democracy. If the voters feel that competence (however you wish to define it) is not as important as other aspects, than who are *you* to disagree? Are the voters all stupid in your opinion?
Maybe they need to take a competency test as well I suppose?
F,
Well I prefer the UK system for instance – where the parties choose the candidates, and the electors choose among those caindidates (for major party candidates, that is). Yes it’s less democratic than the current US method – but then I think democracy is often (if not always) in tension with other important goods. Majority will is not always right – cf. your own example of Hitler.
OB,
So you’d take the choice out of the hands of the voters and give that to a select few? You’re right, it’s not as democratic. But it *might* be more effective in finding a competent leader. However, I feel that it’s just displacing the problem. Somewhere along up the line person A has to judge person B’s competency. What are the guarantees it will be done better by a select few?
Oddly enough, I had something published in the journal Nature about this very subject (only a Correspondence thing [as they call it]).
There is this filtering process going on in the UK, which does mean that the population as a whole doesn’t get to choose straightforwardly according to their preferences.
But it is a difficult argument to make that this is the reason we tend to get pretty good politicians (if we do), because there are other systematic differences between our political systems (e.g., money doesn’t talk here to anything like the same degree).
OB,
“Intelligence” and “competence” are pretty vague terms. You seem to consider verbal skill as a minimal requirement for a politician.
But as long as you don’t become more exhaustive and specific about which competencies you mean, I guess we all agree without really agreeing on anything.
You sound like a polician (an ad hominem).
“there are other systematic differences between our political systems (e.g., money doesn’t talk here to anything like the same degree).”
Very true. And I envy that even more (indeed far more) than I envy the absence of dullards as candidates. It drives me stark staring mad the way the corruption of US politics is simply taken for granted in the US. Just for instance, the way it is always referred to, in the media as well as by everyone else, as ‘fund-raising’ instead of as corruption or bribery. But corruption and bribery is exactly what it is – and if it were called that, there might be a chance of doing something about it. But it never is called that except by a few people whose voices are mostly drowned out. It is massively infuriating.
F, you’re right, I could be more exhaustive, but I don’t have time right now, and I have a feeling most readers know what I mean. But I don’t claim to have given an account of what I mean.
OB, before you get too starry-eyed about the political system we ‘enjoy’ in the UK, may I point out that we are not without our George Dubbelya parallels. I cite John Prescott. Not an oil millionaire perhaps, but raised to office by powerful vested interests and capable of frightening grammatical incompetence.
I much prefer a politician who can skilfully avoid answering a question to one who either does not understand the question or to one who fails to answer it in an obvious and insulting fashion. I think that most people vote heuristically and I offer as a rationalisation for my preference the view that government, indeed all management, is to some extent a social activity that requires an ability to appeal to heuristic modes of thinking without contradicting good evidence. This is probably obvious, but I’ve written it now, so tough.
As Mike points out, we in the UK don’t have any political figures with that level of oratory spasticity, but we do have John Prescott. He has nearly made me nearly crash my car some mornings, i.e. when he’s gone head to head with John Humphries or Jim Naughtie of the BBC Radio 4 Today team. You guys in the US should try and check him out, he really has no shame. If you want to know more, Prescott had deputised for Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wed March 24, and this is from the Daily Telegraph (Filed: 27/03/2004): Concerning the Middle East:
“They’re always the more difficult ways of finding acts of violence or unilateral actions like this will not help… Again, just talk the table.”
Enough already ! Keep up the good work…
Lay off John Prescott guys. It doesn’t follow that because he has language difficulties he lacks competence in other areas. He left school at fifteen, remember.
Fryslan:
“Dubya communicates through his strong actions. Slick Willy charmed the pants off everyone but was a mendacious hypocrite (think Monica L.)”
Aw, c’mon. Are you implying that there is no mendacity in W? Telling his prospective voters that the economy is turning a corner at the same time that the last report on jobs registers an anemic increase of 32,000…that’s no hipocrisy?
And that’s the least dangerous of his lies. What about that statement that “Saddam did not want to let the inspectors in” a few weeks after Iraq’s dictator agreed to open the door to UN weapons inspectors?
Excuse my bluntness, but I think that lying about a blow-job is a much less delicate matter than “stretching the truth” in matters that deal with a potential loss of human life. And I am no Clinton fan, either.
Sorry Jerry, you are perfectly correct. His competence in overturning local planning authority decisions intended to protect the environment cannot be denied, and I understand that he is a fairly competent pugilist. Tell me about some of his more endearing qualities please.
“Sorry Jerry,”
That’s okay. I forgive you.