What makes George W. Bush different from a Bill Clinton is George W. Bush has self confidence. He knows who and what he is. He is comfortable in his own skin. It is the primary characteristic of people who make things happen.
Clinton could not tolerate an employee that was smarter than he was. Thus you see dingbats like Carville, and Madeline Allbright in his administration. The primary defect revealed in Clinton's sexual escapades was his need to prove his manhood. It is very dangerous to have a president who does not feel equal to other men... who must use sexual conquest to prove his manhood. What many do not understand is that Clinton needed to be caught in sexual escapades. It was how he proved his manhood.
It is also the characteristic of many professors. They fear men who have physical prowess. They are also jealous.
Clinton looked for weak subservient people to staff his administrating who followed his every lead and excused his every failure. Clinton was and is at heart a Neville Chamberlain... always looking for a way to avoid conflict. The Europeans liked him because he is a wimp.
Thus he could make a deal with North Korea that should have not been made. Clinton tolerated attacks on American ships, and embassies. He replied with only enough force to keep the media off his back.
George W. Bush would be the same person making decisions the same way no matter what school he attended. That really ticks educators off. They can't make up his mind for him.
If you want to examine a similar decision making process I would point out how Winston Churchill made decisions. Churchill wanted to take on Hitler in 1936. The elite were aghast and pointed out it would likely cost 2 to 3 thousand lives to take out Hitler. So they waited until it took millions of lives.
Oh yes, the elite in great Britain. Had a similar view of Churchill in the 1930s. In their view Winston was much too aggressive and not able to see the obvious shades of gray the in real world. Dumb old Winston tended to see the world as good guys and bad guys. Winston did have one exception to that view. He saw the educated elites as mediocre guys.. and they hated him for that.
In many respects I see a real similarity between Truman and Bush 43. Truman only had a high school education. It made no difference. Derided at the time by the elites it turned out he was right in nearly every move. Bush 43 has a Harvard MBA . It made no difference. Derided in his time by the elites, it is even now apparent that he was right in nearly every move.
History is very kind to men like George W. Bush and like Churchill and Truman .. he knows it.
There was a time when College Professors were seen as foolish impractical men not to be trusted with anything important. This professor makes a very good case for that view.
It is interesting to note the lack of economic commentary these days. Despite the war on terror and the economy that President Bush inherited from Clinton, our economy is in pretty good shape. Not to say there are some major problems with Social Security and other issues that need attention, but rather that things are in much better shape than when he took office because of his leadership.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
Like the old B-school saying: "First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people"
Seen that proven many times.
Fantastic analysis. Spot on.
Tator, this is one of your best. Right on target, in every respect.
Insecure folks who are very smart are almost always a poorer choice for this demanding job than those somewhat less intelligent, but who know themselves, and their limits, and don't push the envelop when it comes to right and wrong. The insecure near brilliant are all too often successful in finessing that roadblock to their ambitions as their high IQ's work overtime to rationalize it all away.
Uh huh..
The fallacy in this essay is that education determines what a person does. It is how dumb people see education.
Smart people understand that character determines what a person does and education is simply another tool in the belt. The left also puts way too much stock in IQ which is a measurement of potential, not outcome.
James Fallows attacked credentialism along similar lines in a long essay years ago in one of the opinion magazines (I kept it), and the educracy's game of "tracking". He made statements rather similar to the essayist's about the "establishment" using education as a tool of social control, to reduce competition for the goodies of success and to screen out boat-rockers.
Clinton could not tolerate an employee that was smarter than he was.
Yes, like that. It's all about competition -- being the smartest guy, the Best Boy in the Room (Clinton's self-defined mission in life). Slick wants to be the last face on Rushmore, or better still, to make people forget about Rushmore by becoming the U.N.'s secretary-general and engineering the transmogrification of the secretary-generalship into a presidency, and the U.N. into a genuine supranational government -- making Bill the Best Boy in Hope into Bill the National Man-Monument, the First President and Founder of the World Government. He wants to become a world-historical figure to shade his critics and his predecessors on Rushmore, by engineering the U.N.'s overreach of the United States -- by helping those corrupt SOB's punch America's ticket -- thus pulling up the ladder behind him and President Hillary, so that nobody can ever compete with him.
I don't know about your statement, that he always surrounded himself with people less intelligent or clever than he, but he always surrounded himself (with a few exceptions) with staffers who were a lot younger. His Cabinet secretaries were mostly midgets (Reich), women, minorities, or mediocrities -- or some combination. Lloyd Bentsen was the exception, and old Lloyd slipped away after a year (I think Bentsen figured out Clinton was using him as a figurehead, and getting his Treasury dirty work done by Bob Rubin, strapping around Bentsen).
Pinging Mia for additional insights on Slick/ripping out a chunk of his buttocks.
Great insights, CT. After the first paragraph, I looked down to see if you had written it. ;-) You have a way of cutting through the mess, and letting the sunshine of reason into a muddle.
I think you are spot on talking about the fundamental difference between Clinton and George W. It explains the people in each of their cabinets, their decision-making processes and their leadership styles. It also explains the women they married and what we see of their marriages.
Great way to start the day -- thanks! :-)
Pinz