March 02, 2006
um, uh, did I miss anything?
I don't think there is anything to get upset about because Justice Ginsburg fell asleep during a complex oral argument. The case will probably be judged on the briefs; oral arguments are usually supererogatory at the Supreme Ct level.
But boy, do I remember how the lefty farts and the media howled with non-stop scorn and derision when SI Hayakawa fell asleep at some meeting. Which was nothing compared to the shrieks when Reagan was not awakened during the Gulf of Sidra incursion. Art Buchwald titled a whole book While Reagan Slept.
(Actually, Reagan was showing good leadership. The operation was carefully planned, and went exactly according to plan. There would have been no point in the President hovering over it a la LBJ. Real leaders give people responsibility, and then let them act.)
Posted by John Weidner at March 2, 2006 01:58 PMGood post, John, except for a nitpick:
Responsibility can never be delegated, only authority can be delegated.
And you're right-- Reagan was an excellent delegator. He knew how to find good people to help him, and he gave them the authority they needed to act in his name as President.
Too many politicians (or business people, for that matter) don't have that kind of courage. And such courage, let alone such conscientiousness, are beyond too many people on the left, unfortunately. I think much of their intemperance of speech (even when civilly phrased) has to do with a lack of courage ("cowardice" is not the right word) and sort of laziness or irresponsibility.
Posted by: Hale Adams at March 2, 2006 03:42 PMI remember that incident. It wasn't LBJ I compared Reagan to, but Jimmy the goober boy. I just knew that if it happened with Jimmy in charge, he would have had people going door-to-door to wake us all up so we could watch him on TV looking concerned round the clock. When they let the president sleep I knew the country was in good hands.
Posted by: Mangas Colorados at March 2, 2006 06:51 PMI remember the time our summer camp staff had to turn out to fight a fire. Turns out that both the director and the program director (second-in-command) were out of camp at the time. (The program director had gone to pick up the director; there was no road into the camp and most things were boated in.)
We didn't find this out until the Forest Service firefighters had arrived... after we had the fires (plural; long story) under control and the perpetrator captured. Which, as the director said, proved he'd done something right...
The most effective chain of command is that which can do without its head in a crisis. Preferably it never has to.
Posted by: B. Durbin at March 2, 2006 09:54 PM
