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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Jun 11, 2008, at 10:23 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> > > I therefore want a president who makes very good appointments.
>
> I will submit to you, Gene, that you want nothing of the sort. . . .  
> If he had appointed very, very competent people, I am thinking that  
> instead
> of just invading Afghanistan and Iraq, he could have managed to also  
> invade
> Iran and perhaps half a dozen other countries .... Venezuela, perhaps.

Your view of good appointments differs from mine. I want people who  
get the job done efficiently, that is with least human and treasury  
cost, and as fast as possible. A competent Secretary of Defense would  
have us out of Iraq by now or would have resigned.
> Instead of acquiring a few trillion dollars war debt and  
> prescription drug
> debt, a competent president with very sharp appoitees might have  
> been able to
> make it several scores of trillions of debt.
Again, my definition of competent people is of those who would have  
done all that has been done with far less waste.

> So ... would you rather have had Bush's appointees to be much more  
> capable of
> doing his bidding that the ones we've had?

GWB would rather that the Iraq invasion and country building in his  
design have been done in a short period of time. So, yes, in that  
regard.
> No, you can't go back and change the premise by saying if they were  
> *really*
> competent, they would have talked him out of the war altogether.

That's another issue. Better advisors might well have done just that-- 
with an intelligent, open-minded president who understands  
fallibility. Not the managers, the advisors. Think Brent Scowcroft and  
Colin Powell under a more open, intelligent president
.
>  This is like
> the answers you used to get from the Oracle at Delphi.  If you  
> really think
> competence in appointees is the thing,

Excellence in appointments is just one thing. I never said it is the  
thing. You did. Restrain that bad habit, please.

> you get the screwed world with war
> fronts in eleven countries all at the same time.

I don't see any logic there.
> Still wan Bush's appointees to have been competent?

Ask the people of New Orleans.
> Like that, Obama's goal isn't for smaller government, spending  
> less.  His
> definition of 'spending efficiently' isn't likely to be the same as  
> yours.  Do
> you want his appointees to be very good at deploying Liberation  
> Theology and
> Marxism?   </HTML>

Jeez, when you get on an extrapolation roll, you really roll. This is  
what I said:

"Choosing the best people is a leadership skill that we need."