NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER: Bush’s Guts V. Obama’s Glib
The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach contends that no matter how long it takes for President Barack Hussein Obama to decide how to proceed in
President George W. Bush once boasted, "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player." The new tenant of the Oval Office takes a strikingly different approach. President Obama is almost defiantly deliberative, methodical and measured, even when critics accuse him of dithering. When describing his executive style, he goes into Spock mode, saying, "You've got to make decisions based on information and not emotions."
Obama's handling of the
Stephen Wayne, who teaches about the presidency at
But to his critics, Obama's prolonged
Obama's style has been attacked from his left flank as well. Liberals have zinged him as being too cautious, too much of a compromiser. Some of his supporters would like to see him show more fire in the belly and recapture the energy that propelled him to victory last year.
But in a recent article for Fast Company, brothers Dan and Chip Heath, best-selling authors of “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,” pose the question: “What if unethical behavior is actually spurred, rather than prevented, by reason?”
Though “[e]thics … is heavy on Spock and light on Sally Struthers” … the Heaths cite this “lesson in the value of heeding your gut about ethical choices”:
In 1987, Paul O'Neill took over as CEO of Alcoa, the world's largest producer of aluminum. On his first day, he announced that no one who worked at Alcoa should ever be hurt at work. The acceptable rate of accidents was no accidents. This raised a lot of eye-brows. Working with aluminum is a dangerous business, and there are plenty of ways to get injured. And Alcoa already had a good safety record, in the top third of companies. O'Neill recalls the skeptical hallway conversations among senior managers: "When the next tough economic time comes, he'll shut up about this."
He didn't. … "If anyone ever calculates how much money we're saving by being safe, they're fired," he told his team. Safety wasn't a priority; it was a precondition. He told people, "From now on, don't budget for safety." O'Neill's resolve paid off. Alcoa became one of the safest companies in the world, despite the aluminum industry's inherent risks.
They conclude: “When you're in an ethically loaded situation and your gut talks, listen to it.”
Since scientists have long considered the stomach and intestines “a second brain,” following your gut instinct will lead to decisions that are both ethical and smart. And this article from The New York Times also suggests that – contrary to popular belief, letting your gut guide your decisions will not lead to rash actions:
[T]he body has two brains - the familiar one encased in the skull and a lesser known but vitally important one found in the human gut. Like Siamese twins, the two brains are interconnected; when one gets upset, the other does, too.
The gut's brain, known as the enteric nervous system, is located in sheaths of tissue lining the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon. Considered a single entity, it is a network of neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that zap messages between neurons, support cells like those found in the brain proper and a complex circuitry that enables it to act independently, learn, remember and, as the saying goes, produce gut feelings. …
Nearly every substance that helps run and control the brain has turned up in the gut, [said Dr. Michael Gershon, a professor of anatomy and cell biology at
British Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth, for one, wishes Obama had more guts, reports The Telegraph (
Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on
But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the
He said that the rising British death toll, the corruption of the Afghan government and the delay in
“All of those things have mitigated against our ability to show progress … put that on the other side of the scales when we are suffering the kind of losses that we are."
But then, the elites in his country question whether Ainsworth, a former factory worker and union official, has the necessary smarts to be Defense Minister, so the elites in this country are likely to brush off his grievances.
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