Unfortunately we're not gambling with only our money. We've put everyone's money on the line in this game and could take everyone down with US.

But what came first, the chicken (coming home to roost) or the putz?

While I agree, obviously, it might be correct to suggest that WE finally got a leader who reflects who WE are. Perhaps this is the essence of the mob democracy which the founders were trying to avoid?

Aaron Datesman: Mob democracy? No, in Bush's case it's more like mob oligarchy, with some theocracy for the plebes.

John,

You really think Bush or Cheney is going to be allowed to fuck this one up? These guys are polling at 30 percent or lower. Is it in anyone's interest even Israel's to continue this farce?

If Bush does not actively step in to stop the crisis and restrain Israel there will be irreparable harm done to the view that US is the sole remaining super power. What kind of super power can't restrain an ally? Further it will feed the fires of the whole tail wagging the dog, making a plain statement to the rest of the world. Can Israel really afford at this point to be known, even mistakenly, as the power behind the throne in the US?

No one benefits from a prolongment of this nonsense. New advanced borders will only be a constant frain on money, time, resources and morale for Israel. Supposing that securing a pipeline avenue is the real point, is also a non- starter, as the infrastructure is unprotectable. One would think that if Hezballa rockets can hit a civil target 40+ miles away, a hundreds miles long pipeline is not a real complication.

Olmert did his chest thumping. But he's opened a wound he cannot close currently without committing atrocities on a scale to inflame the entire world.
And a daily continuance beyond this week will push oil over $100 a barrel by November and drain the life out of the stock market. The longer this goes on the more expensive it gets for everybody.

Much like the NK "missle crisis" this is a self made problem that will make itself go away, and the TV and radio bobble heads will move quickly on to the next manufactured crisis of the day. Probably a missing white girl.

I know it sounds callous with all the death and dieing to equate this with the micheal jackson trial, but the republicans view this as nothing more than an opprotiunity to rebrand the "war on terror" to "WWIII" as evidenced by Newt Gingriches hollow PR push this morning on the talk shows. The republicans know this isn't really a war, to them it's just the July introduction to the fall roll-out of the "new product".

To me the position of leadership automatically entails that the "Great Human Being" category be mutually exclusive, not because of what leaders are per se but because of what the position entails. We don't live in a world where a single decision can be for the good of all. No, there will be people that benefit, and people that lose out from every single decision made.

Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln still amaze me in the fact that they fundamentally knew one thing: they did not know everything. For all their faults they were willing to confront that fact up close and personal, which is why they were able to make decisions and have thoughts that were beyond their capacity as human beings to do. It must be time that the people of the world confront the fact that none of us is as smart as all of us.

Human flaws don't matter as much as the ability to see past them does. And that has to be the true measure of a great human being, not that seemingly unattainable target you seem to set every now and then, Jon.

Jonathan,

I'm still meditating on that profundity 'boiling water isn't frozen', so much so that I have to ask a philosophical question: If a regime changes in the US and the electorate is too apathetic or ignorant to really care, does that mean it really doesn't exist? If that's true then Bush and Company have a complete lack of essence and, therefore, do not exist!

That is a very fair statement Jonathan because the seekers of power can never really be great human beings by their very nature. Romanticizing the past seems to be a facet of human nature that is always with us perhaps because it makes the brutality of life and reality more bearable or is useful to gain an end. However to romanticize does not lead to coherent thought nor is it useful in realizing effective problem solving. And maybe that is why people like Lincoln, FDR etc. had what we needed which was the ability to, when it counted, to set aside romantic views of the world to make the right choices at the right time.

Now Bush on the other hand is completely cynical and uses romanticism to sway the population like his little jaunt on the aircraft carrier invoking the romantic image of the war hero leader. Other leaders have made use of cynical thinking to draw the line between not so good and really, really awful while Bush uses it to make the worst possible decisions at the worst possible times while patting himself on the back for mistaking his particular brand of cynicism as that of a hard nosed realist.

You are so right about America being lucky but when America went down the Bush road immersed in ludicrous romantic views of past perceived greatness it took the road that leads straight to Hell.

Now this is one uncharacteristically shallow post. Leaders? Please. As they used to say:

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.

But I do share the frustration, of course.

Power is a neutral thing. It was seeking power over something after all, that allowed human beings to build cities, create communities, engage in public works and infrastructure etc..once the instinct to power is abandoned, not just the more belligerent aspects of human nature, but also those aspects that create communities and bonds will also be the baby thrown out with the bathwater. Actually, even the great religious spiritual leaders did covet, they just coveted something different from the political leaders. They coveted power over death itself, not over others, and thus enabled the human race to evolve spiritually. To channel our natural covetousness, the will to power, into a way that can spiritually evolve the human race is going to be our challenge.

Aaron:

it might be correct to suggest that WE finally got a leader who reflects who WE are.

I dunno. That's certainly part of it. But with a few teeny-tiny changes Al Gore would have been president. He would have been no prize (particularly in his 2000 incarnation) but getting Bush instead of him was a piece of incredibly bad luck.

J. Alva Scruggs:

He's also the pure, unadulterated product of our country's elite culture. They've achieved near perfection with him and his eager enablers.

Agreed. Getting such a pure distillation of these people at their worst is something we'd avoided heretofor, at least when it really mattered.

patience:

You really think Bush or Cheney is going to be allowed to fuck this one up?

I do think it's a real possibility. Usually the sane evil leaders would step in at this point and knock some sense into the insane evil ones. But the sane evil leaders are at a near-historic ebb of power.

krimur,

Thanks for that. I hadn't seen it before.

En Ming Hee:

Human flaws don't matter as much as the ability to see past them does. And that has to be the true measure of a great human being, not that seemingly unattainable target you seem to set every now and then, Jon.

Well, I'm not saying there are no great people. I'm just saying that if you're looking for them, you shouldn't start in the leader sub-genus.

abb1:

No saviour from on high delivers/No faith have we in prince or peer

Obviously I agree, generally. But the world's (slightly) more subtle than the Internationale. During the 30s, for instance, with a really bad roll of the dice we could have gotten genuine fascism here. Instead we got FDR, who was no "savior." But he was much, much nicer than any likely alternatives.

So, you think the fact that FDR didn't take full dictatorial power in 1933 was simply a matter of his personal choice, huh. I don't know, I'm not a historian, but it seems that there must be more to it.

FDR was the candidate of the non-insane evil people. They knew there was a mess and he'd paid his dues in the system enough for them to trust him. They could have brought him up short at need and they didn't want to utterly crush the insane evil people. The major difference now is that people like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman are stupid enough to think there's long term personal advantage in heaping powers on the executive branch. They'll happily drag their constituents right into a full blown fascist state, with their shills squawking about the lesser evil all the way.

you think the fact that FDR didn't take full dictatorial power in 1933 was simply a matter of his personal choice

No, I agree with you, mostly. Whatever happened that was good was mostly due to the teeming masses. But at least FDR didn't make things much worse than they had to be. Moreover, if he'd been less adept, he could have gotten pushed out by someone else who would have made things much, much, much worse.

Simply being non-batshit insane, and managing to stay in power while keeping the batshit insane at bay, counts as great leadership in my book. You'd hope that was a low hurdle to leap, but history says no.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that this is all about Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman being stupid vs a few unnamed 1932-era people being smart. There must be something else here, some better explanation.

I'd buy the 'LSD in the water' explanation before I buy the 'Hillary Clinton is stupid' explanation.

J. Alva Scruggs,

Common sense tells us that the lesser of two evils is still....EVIL!!!! The main problem is that the electorate is too ignorant to realize this and they still refuse to make a wiser alternative choice. We, the people, are then stuck with their evil choice: Same Old Parties, Different Day!!!

Somehow I find it hard to believe that this is all about Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman being stupid vs a few unnamed 1932-era people being smart.

Well, again, I'm not saying it's a binary question. It's not all about them being stupid. In fact, their stupidity is one of the less important parts of the equation. But nonetheless, their stupidity does play a role. For instance, it was unbelievably stupid for Al Gore to take the position in 2000 that it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. That didn't have only to do with the relative weakness of progressives at that point; it also had to do with his cosseted life experiences, which was very unlucky for us.

Geez, abb1, how much of an exegesis do you want? The power blocs that supported FDR has some institutional memory of how hard it is to get progressive reform through a difficult government structure. Most of them knew what it was like to work for a living. There was no special greatness to them. The DLC and its shills have never worked for a living outside their cozy little crony support network. They're worse than stupid. Their one skill is getting into networks and staying there.

You get the leadership you deserve. Once you get past the ground we walk on this nation is defined by the people that live here. We elected (allegedly) Bush twice. Therefore we are not a great nation. Insolvency, war, enviromental destruction, the poor getting poorer, oh fuck it I could type a list two pages long. I'm nearly 50 and if before I die we've salvaged our finances, our reputation and a chance at a respected place in history I'll be amazed.

I don't know, in 1944 FDR proposed this 'economic bill of rights' with things like
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
and so on.
Even in the 1960s the word 'conservative' was still an insult.
But something was already happening, and, it seems, something's turned decisively around in the 70s and now we are where we are.

I can't explain it, I would like to hear a good explanation, but I don't think it's because of personalities of the leaders.

Let me invoke the horrid memory of James Buchanan, who would go neck and neck with Mr. Bush in any sort of intelligence test.

Lincoln - not romanticized, but recognized in all his humanity - was a miracle of leadership, the right realpolitician at the necessary moment to save the future, still unattained dream of just government. However, only a very few saw this before his death, and many others still don't see it.

This suggests we might look at the array of possible successors to our current Affliction in Chief, and if the phrases "Original Gorilla" or "embarrassment to his country" or other deprecatory epithets seem to fit, let's take another look.

"Let me invoke the horrid memory of James Buchanan, who would go neck and neck with Mr. Bush in any sort of intelligence test."

Sure, but the Presidency was much less powerful in those days; we were a shit-kicking 3rd-rate nation in 1856 and there was no television and therefore limits on cults of personality. Congress was where the real power lay back then. Plus, Buchanan was only a one-termer.

Basically what I'm saying is that the dipshit asshole down the block from me does a certain amount of damage when he gets drunk and wraps his car around a tree; he does a hell of a lot more damage when he wraps my country around a tree as Leader of the Free World. A strict measure of intelligence is not enough; Bush probably is smarter than Buchanan was, but as a lazy fuck with a lot more power he's capable of far worse.

"Business is the business of America." (Although Coolidge said it differently and added a warning.)
Government has been there and remains there to execute the wishes of business. And almost everything in America is business now--health, education, the arts, sports, the 'free press...'

Ho Chi Minh in 1945, describing Americans:

"They are only interested in replacing the French...They want to reorganize our economy in order to control it. They are capitalists to the core. All that counts for them is business."

Just to clarify something, stupidity has little relation to intelligence. It's a function of how intelligence is used. A genius or clever person can be functionally very stupid. Ted's analogy illustrates that very well. The elite culture in this country fosters the pursuit of disaster. They never pay any price. In fact, they're consistently rewarded, the way Bush has been his entire life, even by people charged with opposing his policies. It's little wonder he and his class think cause and effect is for the little people.

You can be relatively low on raw brain power and still manage not to be a dipshit.

What I was saying is this: When Lincoln succeeded Buchanan, the universal reaction of the intelligensia of the day was - this is a disaster. By every measure of fitness they knew about, Abe had no chance.

So let's take a second look at possible successors to stupid/unintelligent/brilliant/horrible Bush - people, we need a horse to bet on, and we need him/her soon.

Politics is so difficult, because it is so difficult to get 50% of people to agree on anything, no matter how plain and apparent the nature of the choice. That's not a statement about the institutional structure of government, but about human nature. Human ambivalence afflicts every individual and group.

If you want to see just how difficult, try bringing up floridation of the water as a politcal policy at a cocktail party. Floridation of the water has been a tremendously successful policy -- cheap and effective in improving dental health dramatically. But, in any group of ten or twelve people or more, someone will emphatically oppose it and deny that it has been effective, and otherwise rant.

Abraham Lincoln was not such an improbable choice, if you had heard him speak, quietly, reasonably and emphatically on slavery, or read one of his speeches. Still, he got only about 40% of the vote, the lowest percentage of any man ever elected President.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they used to say. FDR had to contend with the segregationist "Solid South", dominated by his own political party.

And, George W. Bush was not a good bet. His deficiencies of character and talent have always been on full display. It is not like anyone, who observed him, could have reason to believe that he was an articulate public speaker, or a man of deep caring or high achievement.