The Smart Loser

IBD Editorials ^ | July 6, 2009

[Kaslin]

Leadership: Robert McNamara, architect of the failed U.S. Vietnam war strategy, cultivated a reputation as the smartest man in Washington. But the pride behind his high IQ cost America dearly.

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When Bob McNamara, who died Monday, was reluctantly convinced in early 1961 by President-elect John F. Kennedy to run the Pentagon, he must have been drunk with self-confidence. He had only weeks earlier been made the first nonfamily member president of Ford.

Henry Ford II loved McNamara's grueling work ethic, his seemingly infallible command of statistics, and the record profits he brought Ford in his 15 years there. His academic career included straight A's in high school and a Harvard assistant professorship.

McNamara exemplified the "Best and the Brightest" who would run the U.S. government under JFK. The eighth U.S. secretary of defense was the smartest of the "Whiz Kids," who thought they knew better than ordinary Americans how to run the country.

As Marine Corps University professor Mark Moyar related in his 2006 book, "Triumph Forsaken," McNamara and his colleagues believed "they should make important military decisions that the armed services had made heretofore, claiming that their high IQs and their academic theories trumped real-world experience."

[Kaslin]

Please freep mail me if you want to be on my IBD Editorials ping list

[Kaslin]

Ping

[Eric in the Ozarks]

"Waist deep in the big muddy
and the big fool said push on."

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Rest in peace Mr. Secretary.

Here’s hoping you now have a long time to explain your brilliant policy decisions to some of the 56,000+ guys you caused to die in a futile effort to send a message of resolve to America’s enemies.

[em2vn]

The first of the men who I’ve vowed to piss on their grave has died. Fortunately, I am able to do so.