Policy Advisors

There have been several times that pundits on the news shows have noted that Obama seems slow to respond to a new form of attack by the opposing campaign (first Clinton and now McCain), but that once he does respond the response is a measured and effective one. We’re in the midst of one of those cycles now. The McCain campaign has unleashed Palin along with a new blizzard of lies, Obama does not seem to be responding much, and Democrats are freaking out about the impending loss of the election.

First let me say that, to me, a deliberative process that creates a measured and effective response seems to be a pretty good way to run a country, and is therefor a very good reason to vote for Obama.

As to the time it takes him to arrive at a response? Well, this is only a political campaign; he has the luxury of being able to take his time, so he takes it. He takes the time to look at the wide view and makes what is called an “informed decision.”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Kennedy spent many hours and, at times, days conferring with advisors and sometimes calling in additional advisors before making decisions as how to respond to Soviet moves. That crisis turned out okay, and it did so, in part, because Kennedy was deliberative in his manner and sought input from others before deciding how to deal with it.

McCain is an ex-fighter pilot, a man of action, a “see it now, kill it now” kind of man. His approach to leadership is that he knows all there is to know about everything. His response to a crisis is along the lines of, “Do something now, even if might be the wrong thing.”

He reinforces success, but he doesn’t learn from failure. In Iraq he is so buoyed by what he sees as the success of the six-month “surge” in reducing violence on a small scale, that he cannot see the abject failure of the five-year overall war in reducing violence and danger worldwide.

Obsidian Wings had a guest post yesterday who made this point at length and in a more scholarly way than I can. Here’s an excerpt, but you should really go read the whole thing for yourself.

On Talk of the Nation earlier this week, Ted Koppel asked Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s main foreign policy guy to explain how McCain’s foreign policy staff was set up. Koppel prefaced the question by explaining that Obama has a core team of five or six advisors and then a couple hundred other experts who can be called upon as needed. Scheunemann answered that McCain, doesn’t have the same needs as Obama because he has 40 years in the military and Senate and is already “intimately familiar” with foreign policy issues. He actually said that “John McCain needs foreign policy advisors like Tiger Woods needs a golf coach.”

Like that guest poster, the pick of Sarah Palin as running mate would have swung my choice to Obama if it had not already been there. I fully agree with the person who said that Palin “doesn’t even belong in Washington, let alone in the White House,” but that is not the point.

What the pick says about McCain is utterly frightening. The idea that one man will be making decisions on the level of missiles in Cuba, out of his own brain and without the advice of others, absolutely terrifies me.