Sep 1st, 2008 at 8:16 am
McCain’s Decision-Making Process
As per The New York Times:
“I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”
I’m an impulsive decision-maker myself. If I wasn’t to some extent willing to roll down the road less traveled, I’d never have become a professional blogger. And indeed I take it that this is the core of truth at the heart of the “maverick” narrative — not so much a description of John McCain’s political views but of his approach to life.
56 Responses to “McCain’s Decision-Making Process”
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September 1st, 2008 at 8:23 am
And indeed I take it that this is the core of truth at the heart of the “maverick” narrative — not so much a description of John McCain’s political views but of his approach to life.
s/b ‘but of his approach to major power conflict.’
max
['Matthew, does this mean you're a SWM seeking a trophy wife?']
September 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
Particularly appropriate in light of the mounting evidence that McCain didn’t vet Palin at all, he just did a gut check and rolled the dice.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
this is also why my has left a string of heart-broken blogs behind him. eponymous, tpm, atlantic–how many has it been?
love ‘em and leave ‘em matt–always whoring after the younger, richer, blonder blog-host.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am
That’s all well & good, but a President McCain would be making decisions that would affect hundreds of millions of people. Many who would be considerably less sanquine at the prospect of ‘living with’ the consequences of McCain’s reckless decision-making process.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:10 am
[’Matthew, does this mean you’re a SWM seeking a trophy wife?’]
What does SWM have to do with the McCain story?
September 1st, 2008 at 9:12 am
Here is a re-enactment of the selection process used to choose Gov Palin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk8VZgJkpeg
September 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
While watching coverage of Hurricane Gustav, I’m wondering why again did McCain bypass Bobby Jindal for Sarah Palin?
September 1st, 2008 at 9:42 am
“why again did McCain bypass Bobby Jindal for Sarah Palin”
because he’s batshit insane.
palin may be unimpressive, but at least she’s not about to exorcize the desk lamp when the bulb blinks.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
Impulsive decision-making is a mark of immaturity and poor judgment. I fail to see why this behavior is a virtue in the leader of the free world.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
It’s agreat decision making process for a combat pilot. There is no time to think when the sh*t hits the fan. But as a temlate for a presidential decision making process? Now I’m really scared…
September 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
That also includes his decision to abandon his job as party leader and the need to conduct convention business in order to go ambulance chasing after the latest crisis? Is this good leadership?
September 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
Re John McCain’s statement “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”
————
1) I point again to the link I gave earlier:
http://members.aol.com/rafleet/hazmaps.htm
(Scroll downward to the map for “Fallout High Risk Areas” –taken from FEMA’s “Nuclear Attack Planning Base -1990″.
–If anyone wants a more detailed map for their state, ask and I will give the citation.)
2) Anyone ever heard the military joke: “Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you are.”
A corollary is never give control of nuclear weapons to someone 72 years old. They are a little ..er..”cavalier” toward life. Plus people from out West think the US is getting over-populated. Not enough elbow room.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Re Fixer’s comment “It’s agreat decision making process for a combat pilot. There is no time to think when the sh*t hits the fan. ”
————–
1) The military has the concept of “getting inside the enemy’
s decision cycle” — i.e., you keep striking faster than the enemy can react and move to defend.
The military also has the idea of “Immediate Action Drills’ — i.e., standard procedure, reflex-like responses a military unit immediately takes when certain events occur. E.g., if ambushed.
2) But PRIOR to combat, the military takes enormous pains to learn about the enemy and the battlefield. To plot out all the possible events, enemy actions and possible enemy countermeasures to our actions. They continually plan, drill and execute plans in training ,correct errors and improve.
3) That is MUCH different than seat-of-the-pants, undisciplined and unprepared whimsy. When has anyone ever seen McCain work hard at preparing for anything?
September 1st, 2008 at 10:24 am
It’s agreat decision making process for a combat pilot.
Frankly, it’s a piss poor decision making process for a combat pilot. It has everything to do with why he wasted a multi-million dollar A-4E over bombing a power plant. Chuck Yeager is a wingnuts-wingnut, but read The Right Stuff and imagine him doing what McCain did in the McCain tells that story. No way in hell.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am
DailyKos has two posts up this morning about connections between Sarah Palin and the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party, including a YouTube video where the vice-chairman of AIP speaks about “the necessity of infiltrating the major national parties in order to further the goals of the AIP.” Heckuva vet.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:32 am
Sounds a lot like the guy in office. Make a snap judgement and then have your staff sell it no matter what new information comes to light.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:41 am
“It’s agreat [sic] decision making process for a combat pilot.”
Really? It doesn’t seem to have served McCain very well:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm
September 1st, 2008 at 10:45 am
“Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”
Others have commented about implications for being president. What I think of also is how his behavior at the Naval Academy and crashing all those aircraft should have weeded him out, save for his Daddy’s influence.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:36 am
McCain may well be onto a dismal truth (see below); but the point is that if the President acts as per that idea, it will definitely become true; whereas it might be avertable.
CNN-Sheryl Crow:
CNN: Was there anything on the Republican side for you? McCain professes to be a champion of the environment, wants to curb global warming.
To which Sheryl replied with a story of a dinner in Austin that she’d attended in honor of McSame during the period when he was considering his POTUS run. There, she asked him why the US was being “so reticent to step up to where the science has already brought us” with regard to climate change and the Kyoto accord.
And his comment was, Our best years on the planet are probably behind us. And I was… I mean, the air just rushed out of my body, I felt very demoralized. And I said, if you run for president is that how you feel? Because that’s certainly not an answer that I can live with, not with a new baby. I can’t live with that being the idea.
—
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/1/84759/07332/812/581947
September 1st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Re “Our best years on the planet are probably behind us”
———–
1) See, you guys are the glass-half-empty crowd. If we hang tough with Putin, worse that can happen is a 1000 Megaton nuclear exchange.
2) Nuclear winter will fix that Global Warming issue. And with 300 Million fewer people, there sure as shit will be a LOT less pollution.
Plus ,Wildlife population will BOOM –just look at the area around Chernobyl.
Ain’t nothing sadder than a pack of tree-huggers lacking the courage of their convictions.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Fans of the movie Alien know that there’s another interpretation to example of the glass half full (optimism) or half-empty (pessimism). The correct interpretation is, of course, “Aieee! The face-hugger has escaped!”
September 1st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
But do the results of your decisions more often than not end up disastrously? Have you ever crashed a plane, finished at the bottom of your class, lost a few thousand bucks at a craps table?
September 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
It’s nice that McCain is willing to live with the consequences of his mistakes. But why should I, my son, or my grand-daughter have to do the same?
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