I think Bush should plan press conferences, with notes.

The fact that Bush holds degrees from Yale and Harvard and was a licensed jet pilot doesn’t rate as much as Clinton’s ability to coin the lawyerly usage,
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

In the military sense, leadership has little to do with political hindsight foibles, phobia, or other conditions of human thought and behavior.

Human society is both a congruently social one, with teamwork emphasized, as well as a purely heirarchical structure in which individual accomplishments and Alpha Male positions exist and are valued.

If you look at Japan, you will clearly see quite a lot of emphasis on teamwork, but you will also see a lot of emphasis on personal duty, honor, and loyalty.

The military has had to deal with this human nature without the blinders that politicians and businessmen tend to have on. Because the military cannot afford inefficiency because of some political correct SOP.

Therefore, the military has had to recognize that while you need officers (leaders) you also need people to carry out the officer’s orders and enforce them (NCOs) without the leaders having to look over the underling’s shoulder all the time (lack of initiative).

Initiative is a good thing, pure automation would actually be the result of poor leadership.

As such, leadership in its maximum form is actually a way of imposing Order on Chaos, without stagnation, entropy, or decay.

You get the structured purposefullness of a cohesive unit of people working for a common goal, but you don’t destroy the individual diversity, intiative, and ingenuity that composes this unit. As such, Americans have clearly followed other people in our history, simply based upon the fact that the leaders proved to be both worth the trust, and had the same goals as they did.

Here, you see the heirarchy. The boss is treated as more important than the employee, but without the employee, the boss can’t really do anything.

But you can’t make equal the boss and the employee, because humans are not consensual folks, they don’t operate as bees do.

The lack of leaders tend to result from the fact that to lead free men and women, you have to both show your respect for their dignity as well as prove that you are actually better than they are.

And that is quite hard to do, to convince men and women born in liberty, that someone is better than they are, that that person should be admired and respected and obeyed.

This brings me to the other point, which is Bush’s lack of articulation.

Someone else made the point that everyone understands Bush’s point. While that is true, the problem lies in the fact that Bush never goes up to the media and makes his point unless he absolutely has to. This is sort of like with polls, he doesn’t use them unless he absolutely has to, sort of like on election night. Even then, he leaves that number crunching to Karl Rove.

Let me tell you people this, a President can’t allow his public image to be “delegated” to underlings.

The American people can’t be expected to follow the press secretary, Rumsfield, Conny, the White House press corps, or talking heads. They want to hear their President, and they want to know what he is doing, is planning to do, and thinks of us, the American people.

That is sort, of non-trivially hard to do when Bush ignores and subliminates, and absolutely avoids for the most part any media attention or giving speeches to the press.

The less he talks, Bush, the more time the media has to spin his words and make him say something that he actually didn’t.

This makes the public distrust the media, true, but it also makes the public distrust Bush because we can’t be sure of what he is thinking since he avoids the press.

He can’t avoid the press without also shunning the American people.

His highest approval ratings where when America could see him face to face, talk about the issues that they were concerned about, and afterwards see that his words backed up his action.

Free men and women don’t follow promises, they follow men and women of character.

People can be tired of others criticizing Bush for not being a great speech giver, but the fact is, that this deficiency and lack of communication is hurting the war effort both domestically and foreign wise.

Foreign affairs probably actually have a higher sense of confidence, because Bush has more direct dialogues with foreign people and our military in foreign countries, than Bush has with the American people on national television.

If anyone thinks that just traveling over the country is enough, doing face to face conversations, they will have to realize that the power of persuasion lies in national debates, not provincial ones.

Just compare Ronald Reagan, Churchill and Clinton’s speeches/radio addresses to Bush’s. You will see that Bush does the radio, but ignores anything else. The 21st century is not a “Radio century”, enough people have televisions now. They had enough in Kennedy’s time.

Bush supporters should not be hostile to articulate and meaningful national tv presentations just because Bush isn’t good at having a dialogue with the American people, the lack of which is propounded upon by Bush’s critics. It did not hurt Reagan nor does it hurt Arnold to have a charismatic national tv persona, and neither should anyone else who wants to support Bush believe that this lack on Bush’s part is all that great an advantage in the long run.

Leaders that inspire confidence are leaders that have confident followers.

Leaders that keep their word have followers that have little doubt.

Leaders that can impart their vision have followers
that know where they are going.

Were Carter to focus on the (mostly excellent) Habitat for Humanity, he would be a fine and honest ex-pres., instead of being a “useful idiot.”

The Left likes personalities; even cults, as the personification of the current PC fad.

Still, Steve Jobs seems one of the better “leader” types among the Left. Pope John Paul II was an even greater leader.

Leadership is important — but requires followership.

That is, of course, preposterously simplistic. There are very few, if any, leaders who are not also following a leader “further up the chain”. And those who follow are frequently engaged in leading.

Context matters.

Don’t you think there’s something babyish about people still expecting Bush to be a good speaker?

There’s something intensely sophomoric in the continuing denegration of Bush about this.

For a while I was convinced it was just people being confused about the difference between erudition and articulation. Bush is weak on the former but strong on the latter. We know precisely what he means regardless of the fractured syntax and malaprops. He is articulate but not erudite.

This is not the least bit uncommon and is quite common even among intelligent, educated, accomplished people. It is also quite common to find erudite people who are not particularly articulate. John Kerry is a good example of this. He frequently blathers on eruditely and leaves the listener with no clue what he said. Erudite but inarticulate.

I’ve long been perplexed by those who ridicule Bush about this matter. I cannot think of a single example of him speaking when what he was saying was not abundantly clear. I’ve come to the conlusion that there are several things at work here.

One thing at work is the sophomoric notion that one demonstrates one’s intellectual capacity by verbally running around and inspecting every nook and cranny of a topic. This is an attempt to demonstrate the breadth and depth of one’s intellect. What it ultimately demonstrates is that one cannot get to the point, seperate the important from the unimportant or that which can be effected from that which cannot.

Another thing I think is at work here is something I consider to be residue from the “greatest generation” – my parent’s generation. That generation brought the US from a nation where completing HS was somewhat unusual to a nation where attending, even completing, college was relatively common. The Greatest Generation, or large swaths of it anyway, used careful diction and syntax (erudition) to mark themselves as “educated” so that they might readily distinguish those who were from those who weren’t. Over time I believe they’ve over-emphasized this and have promoted it to a marker of “intelligence” rather than “education”.

I find it fun and instructive, when ridicule of Bush for his fractured syntax and malaprops is raised, to ask the ridiculer what it was he said that they cannot understand. The fun comes in when the ridiculer is left stammering inarticulately trying to explain. The instructive part comes in when ridiculer finally gets on track and goes down a path which leads them to demonstrate that they either have poor listening skills and/or are simply snobs.

People are quite adept at “projecting”. Those who so readily ridicule Bush for his lack of erudition refuse to acknowledge his articulateness. They cannot accep that he said what he meant and meant what he said. They need to project something else upon his words. The same happens for supporters of inarticulate speakers like Kerry. They admire the erudition but cannot accept the inarticulateness. Therefore they must project meaning upon his words that was not there.

Fascinating, IMO. Thanks for bringing it up. Way OT, but fascinating.