Lack of Leadership
I finally got to hear the whole Bill Clinton interview from Fox News yesterday as I drove to work this morning. I love talk radio, since they'll do things like take 10 minutes to play something like that, instead of giving me the 30 second condensed version CNN and everyone else was playing after the fact.
For those who've been under a rock for the last 36 hours, Chris Wallace told Bill he'd gotten a ton of e-mail asking him to ask the former president why he hadn't worked harder to get Bin Laden.
What followed was a nine minute commercial for two things. Richard Clarke's book (which Clinton should read), and how not to be "The Leader of the Free World".
I said Bill should read Clarke's book, because Byron York does a great job in National Review of showing exactly what Clarke's book says about Clinton, and it's not as flattering as Bill seems to think.
In fact, what it shows, and what Clintons own words yesterday showed were a total lack of leadership on his part.
The War on Terror has brought us two stark contrasts in leadership, Clinton and Bush. Clinton's style, evidently was one of lack of conviction. If everyone wasn't 100% lockstep behind something he wouldn't do it. That's not leadership, or even consensus building, that's capitulation to subordinates.
His arguments that the CIA and FBI dragged their feet on the intel he said he needed ring hollow. If they were that poorly performing, what was he doing to correct the problem? Freeh and Tenent were still leading both agencies when Bush took office. If they weren't performing, why weren't they fired?
That the military didn't like his plans, so what, you Bill, were Commander in Chief, that means you tell them what to do. When they say the plan won't work you tell them to come up with one that will, or has a better chance, you don't just do nothing.
In your power was the ability to replace the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, yet they were all still hanging around, even though you claim they wouldn't follow orders.
Clarke points out in his book that Clinton had plenty of political capital to use, but refused to because of his own personal "issues". That's not leadership, that's ass covering, and evidently he was more worried about that than doing his job.
Bush, while definitely not perfect, has at least been decisive. He's used political capital, diplomacy, even coercion at times to get things done the way he thinks they should be done. Have all of his decisions been right? Hell no, but at least they've been decisions.
Bush has stood up and said mistakes were made, and dealt with the (constant) flak from them, and defended his decisions. It's definitely a sharp contrast to his predecessor, who yesterday claimed he did everything right, and it was someone else's fault that things didn't work.
I heard a radio interview with a football coach today, when asked why there seemed to be so much confusion in his secondary on certain plays the answer was "we obviously aren't teaching it right if they aren't executing it". He didn't blame the safety for going to the wrong place, or say the cornerback didn't like zone coverages, or the linebackers hated him because he didn't play their position; he shouldered the blame as the coach for not making it clear what their jobs were. Maybe I should get a copy of that interview and send it to Bill Clinton, it's a good explanation of leadership.
Technorati Tags: Fox News, Bill Clinton, Osama Bin Laden, Leadership
For those who've been under a rock for the last 36 hours, Chris Wallace told Bill he'd gotten a ton of e-mail asking him to ask the former president why he hadn't worked harder to get Bin Laden.
What followed was a nine minute commercial for two things. Richard Clarke's book (which Clinton should read), and how not to be "The Leader of the Free World".
I said Bill should read Clarke's book, because Byron York does a great job in National Review of showing exactly what Clarke's book says about Clinton, and it's not as flattering as Bill seems to think.
In fact, what it shows, and what Clintons own words yesterday showed were a total lack of leadership on his part.
The War on Terror has brought us two stark contrasts in leadership, Clinton and Bush. Clinton's style, evidently was one of lack of conviction. If everyone wasn't 100% lockstep behind something he wouldn't do it. That's not leadership, or even consensus building, that's capitulation to subordinates.
His arguments that the CIA and FBI dragged their feet on the intel he said he needed ring hollow. If they were that poorly performing, what was he doing to correct the problem? Freeh and Tenent were still leading both agencies when Bush took office. If they weren't performing, why weren't they fired?
That the military didn't like his plans, so what, you Bill, were Commander in Chief, that means you tell them what to do. When they say the plan won't work you tell them to come up with one that will, or has a better chance, you don't just do nothing.
In your power was the ability to replace the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, yet they were all still hanging around, even though you claim they wouldn't follow orders.
Clarke points out in his book that Clinton had plenty of political capital to use, but refused to because of his own personal "issues". That's not leadership, that's ass covering, and evidently he was more worried about that than doing his job.
Bush, while definitely not perfect, has at least been decisive. He's used political capital, diplomacy, even coercion at times to get things done the way he thinks they should be done. Have all of his decisions been right? Hell no, but at least they've been decisions.
Bush has stood up and said mistakes were made, and dealt with the (constant) flak from them, and defended his decisions. It's definitely a sharp contrast to his predecessor, who yesterday claimed he did everything right, and it was someone else's fault that things didn't work.
I heard a radio interview with a football coach today, when asked why there seemed to be so much confusion in his secondary on certain plays the answer was "we obviously aren't teaching it right if they aren't executing it". He didn't blame the safety for going to the wrong place, or say the cornerback didn't like zone coverages, or the linebackers hated him because he didn't play their position; he shouldered the blame as the coach for not making it clear what their jobs were. Maybe I should get a copy of that interview and send it to Bill Clinton, it's a good explanation of leadership.
Technorati Tags: Fox News, Bill Clinton, Osama Bin Laden, Leadership
posted by Crazy Politico at 9:19 PM
1Comments:
Crazy Politico,
I have the videos of the Bill Clinton Fox News interview at the inter-galactic jester.
You're categorically wrong to say,
"Bush has stood up and said mistakes were made... It's definitely a sharp contrast to his predecessor, who yesterday claimed he did everything right, and it was someone else's fault that things didn't work."
Clinton literally said, "I made mistakes. I didn't do a good enough job because I didn't get bin Laden killed."
Also, your point about his power to replace the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff is naive. While that may look semi-rational today in the light of 9/11, it would have been crazy in 1993.
The two big take-aways from the interview that I heard from Clinton were: he wasn't able to get clearance from the government of Uzbekistan to install necessary bases for the fight against bin Laden and he would have put more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan to hunt down bin Laden.
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