The similarities in decision making between Bush and McCain continue to grow. First, there was the Saddleback faith-forum where McCain gave quick decisive answers that sounded really good at the time, but later proved embarrassing such as defining rich as those who earn $5 million and above per year and identifying John Lewis as a wise man with whom McCain consults, even though Lewis later noted that McCain rarely consults him, and they more often then not disagree. Even more recently, we have the recent revelations that John McCain apparently made up, or even changed his mind, late Thursday regarding his choice of Vice-President such that Palin, who was slated to speak on some other issues, was completely surprised by his selection. Indeed, Pawlenty was slated to be the Vice-Presidential pick, and had Secret Service agents ready to be detailed to him. Yet, based on a meeting on Thursday, John McCain trusted his intuition, and picked Palin.
These actions bring to mind Joe Klein's 2005 description of George Bush's decision making approach:
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1029809,00.html/snip
Bush is the ultimate "Blink" President, to use author Malcolm Gladwell's catchy term, and recent title, for instantaneous, subconscious decision making. The slogan on Gladwell's book jacket—"Don't Think—Blink!"—is a perfect mantra for an attention- deficit-disordered society, and an apt description of the electric jolt Bush has brought to politics and policy. It certainly was the subtext of the 2004 presidential campaign: Kerry's thinking seemed tortured, paralytic; Bush's blinking seemed strong and decisive.
But there are problems. "We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always understand their fragility," writes Gladwell, who is way too smart to be a cheerleader for the immediate. Gladwell argues that blinking is best when it is reinforced by a lifetime of study and expertise. Bush's blinks come in two basic varieties: judgments about people and about broad policy. Bush may be a master at judging people—though one wonders what he saw in Vladimir Putin's soul—but he hasn't spent much time learning the intricacies of getting a bill through Congress or thinking about how the pieces of the puzzle might fit together in the Middle East after the invasion of Iraq. There is rarely any thought of how a blink will be carried out, or the contradictory impact that his blinks might have on one another. David Kuo, a former deputy director of the President's Office of Faith- Based and Community Initiatives, argued last week on the Beliefnet website that the President had blinked at the well-publicized faith-based antipoverty initiative and then forgotten it. Kuo, who is a friend of mine and truly believes in the President's commitment to the policy, remains mystified by the disconnect between passion and action. Blinks are ephemeral; policy is distressingly concrete.
* * *
This, then, is a moment of no small anguish for the traditional policy establishment, both liberal and conservative. The real division in George W. Bush's Washington is not so much between left and right as between those who act and those who contemplate. Logic would dictate that action without long-term planning is disastrous: that you can't borrow forever, that you can't barge into someone else's region and impose your views without negative consequences.
But expertise and deliberation have never seemed more stodgy, unappealing and unconvincing than they do right now.
/snip
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