Posted on 12/16/2008 9:16:50 AM PST by IbJensen
Barack Obama seems to have a recurring nightmare. In it, he is president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, but he cannot vanquish the one force that has bedeviled all presidents: The Bubble. It can swallow a presidency, isolating the chief executive from both news he should know and opinions he should hear, and ensuring that he goes through his day attuned to the comforting chirping of yes men -- the siren song that serenaded George W. Bush as he plunged us into the muck of Iraq.
Obama has often mentioned The Bubble. ''This is a problem,'' he said recently. ``One of the things that I'm going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation -- The Bubble that exists around the president.''
Inside The Bubble, as Obama well knows, lurks a further danger: groupthink. Obama has used this Orwellian word himself. ''One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink, and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views,'' he said earlier this month.
Michael Boskin, a White House aide to the first President Bush, recalled in a recent New York Times article exactly what Obama has in mind. Boskin took business leaders into the Oval Office to warn George H.W. Bush of a dire economic forecast. Instead, they spent their time praising the president for his handling of the first Gulf War.
Or consider what Lawrence Di Rita wrote in Monday's Washington Post. This former Pentagon aide (2001-2006) said that while Gen. Eric Shinseki might have told Congress that occupying Iraq would take ''several hundred thousand soldiers,'' he never made that case to President Bush. The collected writings of Bob Woodward make a similar point. Under fire, our generals are brave men. In the Oval Office, they often salute and turn to mush.
For some odd reason, Obama has fastened on to his BlackBerry as an antidote to The Bubble. It won't work. When the BlackBerry is valued for e-mail, it is no different than staff. It will only be as candid as the people on the other end. The First BlackBerry will lie.
There is a remedy of sorts. It is called The Newspaper. It is somewhat antiquated and often awkward to use, but it will bring news to the president he does not want to hear. The paper is not written with him in mind. The paper does not set out to please him, and it is not seeking a job. The paper will give the president more policy options than will his staff, and more news as well. Back in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower responded to a question at a news conference by saying, ''You are telling me things about my administration that I have never heard.'' This is what a newspaper does.
A BlackBerry is of limited utility. You cannot have a hearty family breakfast with everyone gathered around the BlackBerry. Just as in the old movies, papa could explain things, like what's the purpose of NATO anymore. (I'm dying to know this myself.) Not all newspapers have comic sections, but even those that don't usually have sports pages and business columnists.
A quality newspaper is a repository of leaks. Presidents don't care for leaks, but like awful-tasting medicine, they're good for them. Leaks are an important way one part of the government can communicate with another. An assistant Cabinet secretary cannot pick up the phone and call the president. His boss won't let him. His boss might block something the president should know. This is where leaks come in. The low-level guy leaks the information to a newspaper and the president reads about it at breakfast. This cannot happen with a BlackBerry.
I can appreciate how this column might be seen as self-serving. It is, of course. The newspaper industry is hurting, besieged by the Internet, mugged by a lousy economy and scorned by the twittery as snailish and too demanding. I concede also that newspapers sometimes can be wrong and occasionally -- as in the run-up to the war -- be inexcusably brain dead. But folded in the manner I learned as a paperboy and tossed with a proper arc, a newspaper can on occasion do what no BlackBerry can -- burst The Bubble.
I take subscriptions.
What would this bozo expect when he's surrounded himself with like-minded communist-socialists?
Change you can believe in.
Obama’s posse
Today’s newspapers as an antidote to group think? LOL Most of them are just a reflection of group think. Maybe if BO read the Washington Times he might learn something - or better yet the comments on Free Republic.
“I can appreciate how this column might be seen as self-serving”
Ya think Cohen.
If W had taken Cohen’s advice Saddam would have set up a rape room in the White House by now.
The author is doing a humor column, I see. Not quite as funny as Dave Barry.
What president hasn’t surrounded himself with like-minded persons?
Would that be "The O'Bubble"?
The Bubble reminds me:
“Where am I?”
“In the Village.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That would be telling…. We want information. Information! INFORMATION!”
“You won’t get it.”
“By hook or by crook, we will.”
“Who are you?”
“The new Number Two.”
“Who is Number One?”
“You are Number Six.”
“I am not a number — I am a free man!”
>>>There is a remedy of sorts. It is called The Newspaper. It is somewhat antiquated and often awkward to use, but it will bring news to the president he does not want to hear. The paper is not written with him in mind. The paper does not set out to please him, and it is not seeking a job.<<<
Let me stop laughing for a moment and wipe the tears from my eyes. I’m a former newspaperman myself. It’s the awful truth. The writer of these sentences has to be willingly blind to the reality that many of us former print media people are now working for... government! Of course the media is out to please Obama, and, yes, many of them are seeking all sorts of jobs that can easily use the same skill set I learned in a newsroom - categorizing information, gathering research, writing reports, and, most important, spinning results to gain the desired outcome.
If the president is really interested in puncturing groupthink, he should read broadly from a variety of sources, including the print media, magazines, research journals, blogs, letters to the editor, and novels. He should also be listening to talk radio and watching a variety of television shows. He should also be listening to people on the street - maybe come down and visit the tourists on the first floor every once in a while, or sneak out and chat with some guys at the local bar.
Most important, he needs someone whose job description is, “Regularly punctures ego, calls him out on bullsh*t, and doesn’t put up with crap.” In my world, we call that “the wife.”
The most important thing he needs, however, is modesty and humility. He needs to understand his limitations and express so openly, and he needs to humble himself before God. Nothing and nobody deflates that “balloon” faster than a sense of your own flaws. Sadly, nothing I’ve seen of Obama so far indicates any sort of modesty or humility.
I canceled my subscription to the local Gannett rag three months ago.
The one paper that comes to mind that is on the side of its readers is Philadelphia's The Bulletin.
There are a very few 'newspapers' in this country that could be used for something other than wrapping garbage. I canceled my subscription to the local Gannett rag three months ago. The one paper that comes to mind that is on the side of its readers is Philadelphia's The Bulletin. 11 posted on December 16, 2008 3:48:39 PM EST by IbJensen
FreeRepublic.com is what "letters to the editor" would be like without the pro-Democrat (to Obama, the bubble) filter. And with an anti-bubble conservative filter instead.But "the bubble" is actually a failure of character of the president who doesn't transcend the yes-men his position inevitably attracts.
Pres Elect Obama has 72% approval already, including the -30% among Republicans, and he hasn’t done anything at all. Wait until he actually does something, you’ll see numbers no one believed possible
“There is a remedy of sorts. It is called The Newspaper. It is somewhat antiquated and often awkward to use, but it will bring news to the president he does not want to hear. The paper is not written with him in mind. The paper does not set out to please him, and it is not seeking a job.”
Oh the audacity of that statement speaks louder than any humerous or snarky comment I can think of...
This empty-suited marxist narcissist is incapable of sharpening pencils.
Wait till Caroline hits the Senate!
*humorous
He's no marxian. Most of his old friends play that old marxian nihilism thing to attract liberal wimmin but they aren't much good at real marxian either. He reminds me of a used car salesman not a Mensan.
...we call it the “Freerepublic Bubble”.
Difference is, we don’t whine about it.
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