Noonan on The Uncalibrated Presidency
Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal: Don’t Wait, Calibrate; Learn to bend, Mr. Bush. You won’t break. It’s well worth your attention.
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The greatest criticism of the president’s governing style and White House is that they are uncalibrated.
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It’s as if Bush doesn’t understand the concept of danger. He understands sin, redemption, practicalities (every man has to make his living, life is competition, etc.). But danger? Does he understand how dangerous life is? It’s not cowardly to know this, and factor it in. It is in fact strange not to.
I sometimes think about people who ski. It has seemed to me that people who ski don’t know how dangerous life is. Life hasn’t taught them. So they look for danger on their vacations. They strap pieces of wood on their feet and propel themselves down high mountains full of snow and trees, drops and turns.
They consider this invigorating. The rest of us consider it perplexing. The rest of us are trying to take a holiday from danger. We are all shaped by experience. Lately I think the president could have used a time in his life when his father couldn’t pay the rent. Such experiences tend to leave you unwilling to count on good luck coming, or staying.
Sometimes Mr. Bush acts as if he doesn’t know you don’t have to look for trouble, it will find you. When you are the American president, it knows your address by heart.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
This was a gem; I especially liked the perspective on former presidents.
There is a word for it: “pigheaded” and I don’t really like applying that to the American President but if the shoe fits…
The real problem is when a pigheaded person consistently makes bad decisions.