He seems to conclude that nobody is very good at it, and the the accuracy of prediction correlatted better with thought style (hedgehog vs fox) than with political leaning, education, experience, or reputation. You can get a taste of the book from http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/051205crbo_books1

While I would agree with the specific cases of Kerry and Bush, I don’t think your generalization about the parties really holds. From what I see, the independents and moderates from both sides tend to be foxes, while the “mainstream” (that is, mainstream within the parties) and extremes of each party tend to be hedgehogs.

“…You may have shown that you disagree with GWB on where exactly this balance should be, but you certainly haven’t shown a contradiction in his policies…”

Okay, I certainly differ on where the balance point is, and your point is taken – I may not have demonstrated contradiction. Personally, I feel that the GWB administration is the most dishonest since Nixon, and I actually believe there is more hypocrisy than intellectual confusion, but I haven’t demonstrated that here either. It would take a long blog of its own to argue that one. I’ll just say that his presentation of the Social Security policy issues strike me as a good example of his deep dishonesty, or reckless disregard for truth.

[As an aside, I rarely get involved in discussions of whether GWB is a ‘liar.’ I don’t know, and don’t much care. A president is so powerful, if he wants to go against the truth, others will do the lying for him. The modern-state equivalent of Henry II and Thomas Beckett.

When Clinton said, “I didn’t have sex with that woman…” that was a lie. (Unless you believe that he didn’t think – as I’m told many teen agers don’t think – that oral sex is REAL sex, but that’s another sordid story…) When a man has such strongly held pre-conceived notions, core values if you will, that he doesn’t care much about the niggling details of fact, and never concerns himself with hearing from those who do care, then that’s a disregard for the truth. It’s a powerful tool of politicians, but it’s not the same as lying. Reprehensible and dangerous, though.]

As for Anonymous’s comment:

“…how about getting goverment off our backs? [Lichanos] should be very happy then with Bushs tax cuts because that is government being on peoples backs worse than anything else,”

I said that GWB ‘claimed’ to want to get government off our backs, and I said that he pursues many polices that do the opposite. As a hardcore modern liberal, I’m not too concerned with government on my back in the form of taxes. I see government as a useful tool to improve human society. (Yes, I know it can be used to destroy it too.) It seems to me that present day conservatives rail so much against taxes that you’d think they were against them in toto, but of course, then we’d have no government at all. If we want an army, police force, courts, highways, harbors, etc. we need taxes. Taxes in the USA are by far the lowest in the advanced industrialized world. The tax rates in Scandinavia may strike terror into your heart, but they GET a lot for their taxes. They don’t pay for college tuition, for example. There are a lot of tradeoffs, and I don’t begrudge people their opinion if they feel that low taxes in a society of strivers, some of whom fall through the ‘safety net’, is the best arrangement. What bugs me is that these same people are often the ones who whine for more services from government when it benefits THEM. A case in point – the rock rib conservatives of the Republican states of Colorado, Utah, and the region, e.g. James Watt. Die hard conservatives all, until it comes to getting the water for their enormous corporate farms for virtually nothing from dams built at terrific cost to the taxpayer. Just one little example.

I apologize, I did misread your original post, but I believe an aspect of my point still stands. You stated that he couldn’t possible be for all of the listed propositions because they contradicted one another. But that isn’t necessarily true. It is perfectly possible for him to be in favor of any of the above propositions at different times and under different conditions. For example, if one were concerned primarily with the general liberty of a nation, then one would in general be in favor of States rights and a less centralized national government. Ok, new scenario, let say said nation is now under threat of conquest from anothe opposing nation. In this instance only a strong national government could defend the entire nation. Our politician would want to increase power to the national government because death and conquest are obviously more dangerous to the liberty of the nation than an increase in centralized powered ( or perhaps more precisely, a temporary increase).

” I’m not charging moral turpetude here – simply pointing out that his professed core beliefs are radically contradictory. “

True enough, but I still fail to see your contradiction! Your examples can only be seen as contradictions if they are taken as absolutes. But I think it is obvious there his core beliefs balance these various political propositions. He is not in favor of absolute power to the State, but in favor of increased power under condition x and only covering power(s) y.

“I will remark that the desire for a free society is always in conflict with the need to ensure security for its citizens.”

And this is exactly my point! There is a balance that needs to be maintained and concidered at all times. No one need is absolute. In different conditions the scale can obviously tip one way or another depending on the needs of the nation. You may have shown that you disagree with GWB on where exactly this balance should be, but you certainly haven’t shown a contradiction in his policies nor his beliefs.

I also read or heard somewhere a description of FDR as a hedgehog, at least when it came to the Depression and WWII. FDR was quite a different guy than Bush, of course, but apparently he was also not considered to have been an intellectual in the sense that Kerry or Wilson, or even JFK were thought to be. According to what I’ve read, he had the capacity to get an idea into his head that he thought was the right course of action, and to not thereafter be troubled by hesitation about it once he’d made up his mind (sort of like the opposite of Hamlet). He was an incurable optimist, and resolute. Those are characteristics I also include in my own personal (and perhaps flawed) definition of hedghoginess.

I think the “fox vs. hedgehog” analogy is interesting, although (like most metaphors) it oversimplifies. I don’t think that Bush “knows only one thing well”, as the hedgehog does; the man can be unbelievably canny where you least expect it. (Here are some more thoughts on that subject.) And if Kerry knows many tricks, as the fox does, then it’s in the manner of the “jack of all trades, master of none”.

Lichanos: you ask what GWB’s great principles are. I’d argue that an overriding principle, very much evident in GWB’s style as President, is that he sticks to his core beliefs. He doesn’t always say what he’s doing, but when he does we can believe him. He has a firm grip on what he believes, and governs accordingly… and doesn’t mince words about it.

All of this was a refreshing contrast to Kerry, in my mind, back before the election. Kerry’s famous “flip-flops” drove me crazy, as he tried to appeal to one interest group after another. No doubt Kerry does have his own core interests and beliefs, but he didn’t talk about them — ever.

(For example, I suspect that, since Vietnam, Kerry has remained suspicious of the use of American military power abroad, and thus has sought to reduce American military effectiveness so that it wouldn’t be misused. That’s a reasonable position to take, although I don’t agree with it… but I suspect Kerry knew that voicing such an opinion would be electoral suicide, no matter how fervently he believed it.)

In the end, this doesn’t reflect Bush’s principles; it reflects his character, i.e. the aspect of his personality that guides his formation of principles. Bush’s character appealed to me more than Kerry’s, which was a big part of why I voted the way I did.

Great blog! I’ll be back frequently.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Berlin’s own examples of the archetypal fox and hedgehog were Shakespeare and Tolstoy respectively. Berlin himself was a classical liberal in the 19th century mould and his whole intellectual project was a rejoinder to fascism, communism, and other forms of radicalism. Berlin believed that essential goods like liberty and equality conflict and that therefore we need a moderate perspective on things than can balance these conflicting claims.

In that respect, his sympathies are clearly with the fox, with Shakespeare, rather than the hedgehog, Tolstoy, who renounced his art and became a kind of fundamentalist late in life.

Given all that, to me, the more appopriate identification, one closer to Berlin’s intent, would be to see Bush as the fox and Osama bin Laden as the hedgehog; Bush as the defender of democratic liberalism and bin Laden as the avatar of militant theocracy.

Anyway, I urge everyone who hasn’t read Berlin yet to do so now, especially neo-neocon herself, who should find a lot in his work that speaks to her. The best place to start is *Four Essays on Liberty*, the most thorough articulation of Berlin’s ideas and one of the best works of intellectual theory in the twentieth century.