The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Leadership 102: Stand By Your People

Posted on | July 26, 2010 | 6 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Gateway Pundit)

It’s probably not an initial lesson in leadership, but, after a while, some fertilizer hits the air circulator, and a real leader has to stand by the troops. Hopefully, there is a foundation of communication, confidence, trust, and a clearly articulated direction of movement. If a subordinate makes an unforced error, it becomes a training opportunity.

A brief example.  While standing a watch in the engineering plant on a warship, oh, twelve years ago, I made a marginal call that dumped the load. The ship went dark. The senior troops in the Engineering Department had to rush in at a fine Navy hour and clean up. Fortunately, we were at anchor, but I was still about 2″ tall. Going over the details, I had been insufficiently skeptical about some readings, and had pushed a generator a bit too hard. It was a mistake you make once. The Chief Engineer, once the plant was alive and re-settled, took me to the wardroom and explained that this was an expensive lesson, but that I had to get back down there and do the job.

So here is former Governor and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean looking a total apparatchik on Fox:

Sherrod’s been scuttled. Dean must be prescribing himself something good to numb the aftereffects of this debacle.

But forget those people. Think about the remainder. When Abu Ghraib went down, did Bush call for Rumsfeld’s head, as did so many in the media? No. It wasn’t until after the 2006 election, when that narcissistic ego-centric Bush, who never listened to the will of the people, ever, finally accepted Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation. You can argue that Bush was loyal to the point of blindness.

And it may be possible that Sherrod was so atrocious that she had to be ushered out now, now, now. Even in the case of General McChrystal, where the magnitude of the offense seemed smaller, there seemed to be so much more deliberation before the decision. At least some time passed between the announcement and the decision.

However, in light of the amateurish and sloppy approach to the whole Sherrod affair, where you have a senior party tool going on Fox news woefully un-briefed and having his backside amputated, what does that do for the rest of the administration? Is this a sign of exhaustion, or near collapse? Can we have a reporter offer a sewing kit to Gibbs to pass to Dean, so that Howard can stitch up his tatters?

The situation doesn’t look healthy. With the primaries finishing and the election campaign gearing up, it seems like the hits just keep on comin’ for the Unready Administration. They really should resurrect that old ‘cool, above the fray’ branding from the 2008 campaign, and apply it to these emergencies. I don’t care if the POTUS is a chain-smoking wreck: it doesn’t help the country for that to be so obvious.

The wisdom of the Framers in re-electing the House at a two year frequency shines at times like this. As fragile as all of this appears, would anyone be surprised by a resignation after an ‘unforseen, unanticipated’ drubbing for the Democrats in the election? The Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi even sets up the bogus medical precedent needed as a fig leaf. Write another best-seller, hit the golf course. Spare us all the political revenge talk, if Congress flips sufficiently.

Being in an organization where you don’t think the superiors will back you up is a special form of hell.  You still have a job to do, irrespective of those superiors, but the overhead of second-guessing every decision is debilitating.  I rejoice that none of the officers under whom I served were ever like this.  If the administration isn’t standing by its people until the facts are known, we may have to amuse ourselves with a Body Count Lotto on how many more acts of Sherrodism will occur. We’ll have to pin down exactly what ‘Sherrodism’ means, and whether the count goes back to the Inauguration, or starts how. Discuss.

Category: Barack Obama, Racism

Comments

6 Responses to “Leadership 102: Stand By Your People”

  1. richard mcenroe
    July 26th, 2010 @ 1:19 pm

    Actually, the Administration achieved its goals. Sherrod could dis the buckra all she wanted, but she had to be shoveled offstage before people really began to notice the millions of dollars of farm “compensation” (reparations) she laundered to African-Americans who had never farmed anything.

  2. richard mcenroe
    July 26th, 2010 @ 9:19 am

    Actually, the Administration achieved its goals. Sherrod could dis the buckra all she wanted, but she had to be shoveled offstage before people really began to notice the millions of dollars of farm “compensation” (reparations) she laundered to African-Americans who had never farmed anything.

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  4. Estragon
    July 27th, 2010 @ 8:13 am

    Occam’s Razor, my friend.

    When people behave like completely incompetent buffoons, the simplest explanation is that they really are completely incompetent buffoons.

    Howard Dean is a case in point, but he’s even become boring with his shtick these days. How much better would that interview have gone if he had let loose of his primal screams?

  5. Estragon
    July 27th, 2010 @ 4:13 am

    Occam’s Razor, my friend.

    When people behave like completely incompetent buffoons, the simplest explanation is that they really are completely incompetent buffoons.

    Howard Dean is a case in point, but he’s even become boring with his shtick these days. How much better would that interview have gone if he had let loose of his primal screams?

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