Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a ouch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Dick Morris, "How Mitt Suckered Newt": THUMBS UP!
I attribute President Obama popularity to one particular trait: his unflappability. (He has other less endearing qualities, such as a condescending attitude, making it clear that anyone whom disagrees with him is either stupid or obstructionist. One might think that someone smart enough to control his emotions in public would also know when to keep his mouth shut...)
As any faithful reader knows, I love quotes (I've even published some of my own originals in the blog (e.g., here and there)). So we have some classic quotes on calmness:
- Calmness is the cradle of power. - Josiah Gilbert Holland
- Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances - Thomas Jefferson
I have a different style than Barack Obama; I maintain self-control at all times, but I can be very direct.
A brief example will suffice. I was dealing with an Oracle high-availability database configuration requiring two different database servers to be identically configured. A security patch had to be applied to the operating system, and maintenance periods were usually on early Thursday evenings. When this database was unavailable, we had to go through special steps, such as ensuring base security guards had certain hardcopies. The female supervisor of the Unix admins, after announcing the patch, didn't appear at the Monday meeting with application leaders, but I followed up to ensure everything was set for Thursday. I also had to shift to a later work schedule (because we could only bill 8 hours a day). At some point Thursday afternoon, the Unix administrator became aware of the fact that I expected both servers would be patched, but he thought he was only going to patch one of them and do the other one at a later date. He could have worked on both servers concurrently but he "wasn't comfortable" with working on more than one server at a time. This was not a novice Unix admin: he had worked there for 6 years. His manager pulled the operating system upgrade about 10 minutes before the end of the business day/beginning of maintenance period.
I was unhappy because both the manager and the Unix admin should have known about the joint patch policy of these servers, never talked to me about the patches on these servers before scheduling the patch and then pulled the patch work at literally the last minute--after I had personally done the legwork (not the Unix admin) to ensure all the special steps were carried out by Tuesday. I wanted to know how she didn't know both servers had to be patched together before putting the patch on the schedule--and allocated time accordingly. Even if she didn't know, why didn't she check with me first, because these were database servers. Long story short, she wanted me terminated immediately. I didn't need to resort to name-calling or false allegations: the facts (as Al Gore might say, "inconvenient truths"), a failure of due diligence, spoke for themselves.
I remember babysitting my nephews and nieces (different families) and watching a couple of older ones constantly having their chains jerked by younger siblings (and even when I explained to them what was going on, it didn't seem to register). But you have to admire how the younger siblings seemed to know exactly what buttons to push or strings to pull.
So here we have the case of one Newt Gingrich, whom by early December was acting like getting the GOP nomination was in the bag: the math was inescapable. One problem: even though Newt Gingrich may have been the "smartest guy in the room", he seems to have an inflated ego and a thin skin. Newt Gingrich is an historian by training (granted, not American historian). There have been nasty politics since the early days of the republic. I don't speak for all voters, but I don't like to hear candidates make excuses, play the victim card or overreact. For one thing, some people will think where there's smoke, there's fire. Second, people like to see passion--but passion for one's ideas and causes, not personal image. Gingrich can't be seen as a guy in the White House consumed with playing Whack-a-Mole, every time some 2-bit dictator like Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls him a name. We want to have confidence in our Commander in Chief, someone whom is going to be level-headed in a time of crisis.
Morris basically argues here that it really didn't matter what those PAC commercials said: what mattered was how Gingrich responded to them. What Gingrich had to do was respond objectively to the substance of the allegations and move on, certainly not show the allegations were getting under his skin; he needed to take the higher road, shake off the commercials like the water off a duck's back. Once Gingrich overreacted, the game was over; he wasn't acting Presidential.
Romney's "Foot in Mouth" Disease
You would think the last thing I need to lecture a politician on how to talk to the media: if there's one thing Obama knows, it's symbolism. No doubt Romney's comments about not being concerned about the very poor amused Obama, as he sampled his arugula for lunch, paid the mortgage on his $1.6M mansion in upscale Chicago and the next installment of the $60K annual private school tuition for his two daughters and planned his next vacations to Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii and his next golf outings.
Romney has had a number of known gaffes over the past few weeks: talking about liking to fire people and betting a fellow candidate $10,000 But even though I understand what Romney meant here, it's just a very bad choice of words.
"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich.... I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."First lesson, Governor Romney: as President, you're President of ALL the American people: poor, rich, and the middle class.
What Romney said is very consistent with the way business executives speak. Let me explain in the contest of a family going on summer vacation: "I'm not worried about the newspapers or the mail: I've put them on hold. I'm not worried about the lawn: I've hired Bob next door to handle it in my absence. What I am worried about is a couple of packages on order which could arrive while we're gone..."
But I disagreed with what he said and how he said it. Here's what I might have phrased: "Look, this is a tough environment. Energy and food inflation affects everyone, even the poor. We need a fiscally responsible budget to ensure all programs, including our safety net programs, are sustainable. We need to have pro-growth policies in place to provide employment opportunities across the breadth of the economy. But I'm particularly worried about middle-income families whom are struggling to keep up with the high cost of health insurance, retirement planning and college tuition, among other things."
Reason's Big Nanny of the Month
What hypocrites! You would think after what LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Governor Jerry Brown are doing to California taxpayers, they should set a good example by wearing prophylactics on the job... Fortunately, we can recognize the symptoms of infection: for example, if you find yourself suddenly staring at that bulge in someone else's back pocket, you're brooding about your Calpers check being late this month while on your morning 5-mile jog passing by those poor saps sitting in traffic, or in the middle of a workday afternoon, you find yourself giving "Dr. Phil" unsolicited advice on how to run his show...
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Queen, "Flash". I still think this is the COOLEST theme ever for a SciFi project, and Freddie's vocals are AWESOME at a high range (the dialogue about having only 14 hours to save the earth: priceless!) I know a lot of my fellow geeks will disagree. Other favorite fantasy project tunes by other artists: Remy Zero's "Save Me" (the "Smallville" theme), the Theme from Beauty and the Beast (i.e., Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman, TV, not Disney), and "One of Us" (Joan Osborne's brilliant anthem use by the "Joan of Arcadia" series)
This marks the end of my Queen series. The next group I'll cover is the Guess Who.
