The Vices of Their Virtues

McAIN REMINDS ME OF AN OPPENENT I RAN AGAINST FOR COUNTY JUDGE IN TEXAS ABOUT FIVE TIMES. I SPENT TWENTY YEARS IN PUBLIC OFFICE AND I PARTICIPATED IN A LOT OF POLITICS. THE WORST OPPENENT AND PUBLIC SERVANT YOU CAN HAVE IS ONE THAT RULES BY TEMPERMENT. THEY ARE EFFECTIVE WHATSOEVER. THEY USE FEAR AND ANGER TO CONTROL OTHERS.

WHEN THEY ARE CAUAGHT IN THE WRONG, THEY TURN TO ANGER. THIS IS SIMILAR TO WHAT I HAVE READ ABOUT PALIN. IN MY OPINION, SHE HUNTS FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO PROVE SOMEONE WRONG, AND THEN SHOW OFF LEADING PEOPLE TO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE INTELLECTS. THIS IS HOW THEY GAIN CONTROL OVER OTHER, AND EVEN THE MEDIA. BUT THE BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE IS LACKING.

McCAIN HAS BEEN IN OFFICE FOR 26 YEARS: DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER 26 TIMES. PALIN HAS BEEN IN PUBLIC LIFE HUNTING WRONG DOERS TO GET THE CREDIT, NOW SHE IS THE HUNTED! THIS TYPE OF EPHEMERAL POLITICIANS ARE A DIME A DOZEN AND DANGEROUS FOR THE THE UNITED STATES.

WAKE UP AMERICA AND SMELL THE LIPSTICK! VOTE DEMOCRAT! THE BEST CHOICE, THE ONLY CHOICE!

(Part 2 of 3: Continued from my post above - Intelligence and Leadership: Posner)

The high-level jobs are filled generally by lateral entries from quite different jobs, rather than by civil servants. Some of these high-level jobs are technical; an example is the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board. Such jobs are relatively easy to fill with persons who can be predicted with reasonable confidence to do a good job.

But there is a tendency to exaggerate the versatility of the combined general-specific human capital that a lateral entrant brings to a high-level government job of a managerial or advisory rather than technical character. There are SEVERAL CHARACTERISTICS of such a job that actually MILITATE AGAINST THE PROSPECTS FOR THE SUCCESS OF AN EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT PERSON. First, these are ensemble jobs in the sense that many different skills or aptitudes are necessary to successful performance; if one of these, such as intelligence, is very highly developed, a person may neglect the others.

Second, it may not be possible to use step-by-step, logical reasoning to solve the problems laid at the feet of the occupant of a job like secretary of defense or secretary of state or national security adviser. Such questions as what to do in Vietnam or what to do in Iraq do not lend themselves to rigorous analysis because there is not enough information to analyze. Intelligence is not designed for coping with situations that are not complex, but rather are profoundly uncertain. Having great information-processing skills is not worth a lot if you have no reliable information.

Third, leaders or managers should be more intelligent than their followers or subordinates, but not too much more intelligent. IF THEY ARE TOO MUCH MORE INTELLIGENT, THEY WILL HAVE DIFFICULTY ASSESSING THE CAPACITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF THEIR UNDERLINGS and they will be tempted to substitute their intelligence for their underlings knowledge. Analysis and knowledge are, to an extent, substitutes. You can multiply two numbers rapidly if you have good computational skills or if, though your computational skills are mediocre, you have memorized the multiplication table. Knowledge in government resides in civil servants, and they tend on average to be less intelligent (also of course less powerful) than brilliant laterals. So the latter are tempted to think that they can make decisions with minimal assistance from the civil servants.

The temptation is reinforced by a failure to distinguish between intuition and step-by-step reasoning. Cognitive psychologists explain that the human unconscious contains more information than we can access at a conscious level. As Herbert Simon (an economist and psychologist) explained, conscious attention is a severely limited faculty and must be

(Continued in my post below: Intelligence and Leadership: Posner)

(Part 3 of 3: Continued from my post above: Intelligence and Leadership: Posner)

carefully rationed. Through intuition, however, we can access the larger repository of unconscious information. Hence we speak of a person as having EXPERIENCE or GOOD JUDGMENT or COMMON SENSE, as distinguished from being brilliant in the sense of being quick or having a good (conscious) memory. So now imagine a confrontation between a BRILLIANT PERSON WHO HAS NO KNOWLEDGE about Vietnam or IRAQ, and a CAREER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICER who has spent his whole career working on conditions in one of those countries, who KNOWS THE LANGUAGE, has LIVED THERE, and is STEEPED IN THE COUNTRYS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND POLITICS. Suppose he offers some advice to the brilliant senior official, and the latter asks him to explain and justify the advice. He may be unable to do so because he may be drawing on a repository of information below the conscious level. The BRILLIANT OFFICIAL may be IRRITATED at HIS INABILITY to EXTRACT much more than A CONCLUSION FROM THE EXPERT.

What is required at the TOP LEVELS of government is NOT BRILLIANCE, but MANAGERIAL SKILL, which is a different thing, AND INCLUDES KNOWING WHEN TO DEFER TO THE SUPERIOR KNOWLEDGE OF A MORE EXPERIENCED BUT LESS MENTALLY AGILE SUBORDINATE. Moreover, so specialized is management as a job that success in managing a business may not translate at all into success in managing a government agency. The firm-specific human capital that a person acquired in a career of management in a business firm may have no value for the management of a government agency, or for that matter a university, a private foundation, or an international organization. Indeed, an experienced manager of a firm may falter and have to be fired if a change in the firms environment requires a different type of management skill.

A striking example of the specialized character of leadership human capital is Larry Summers. A TRULY BRILLIANT PERSON AND SUCCESSFUL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, he FAILED as PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY though he seemed to many people (myself included) to be an outstanding choice. I have the highest personal and professional regard for Summers and blame the failure of his presidency not on him but on the Harvard faculty of arts and sciences. But the fact is that he failed, because he was not able to port his very considerable suite of intellectual and managerial assets to the management of an organization critically different from the Treasury Department.

Source:
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/06/intelligence_an_1.html

Just to let all you "poor" Democrats out there. There are more "rich" Democrats than Republicans. Look it up.

Zigzag (proper moniker) - I really don't know what you pay attention to - obviously not much. You just say what you are told to say, do what you're told to do. You are obviously not the brightest or the best. But you still have a mind of your own, I hope.

Freedom !

Too cerebral? This is the man that was unable to interpret the New Yorker front cover page.

Now his toadies are trying to tell us that he is too cerebral. Stop drinking the Kool Aid.

I have been in favor of John McCain since 2000, when the current occupant of the White House sabotaged his campaign. The idea that McCain and W agree on everything is laughable, and can only be believed by people who don't pay any attention to politics. McCain is clearly the better choice if you are concerned about our country's national security AND the economy. He obviously tried to do the right thing on this bailout package, by suspending his campaign and returning to Washington. Only time will tell if the bailout package is needed, but at least McCain is involved and intensely fighting for what he believes is right -- which is more than I can say for Sen. Obama. I'm not sure he'd leave the campaign trail if Al-Qaeda attacked our nation again!

What exactly have the the Mc Cain supporters gained personally in the last 8 years when McCain has supported most of Bush initiatives. The 1 trillion dollar war adn GOP doctrine of reckless de regulation and tax cuts for rich has bankrupted the economy. Mc Cain whole heartedly supported a regime that has triggered the decline of American militarily and economic might . Pity People so clued out to still want to support Mccain.

Breaking news to all those dire hard Obama fools, the Barry's camp has issue a statement to all TV and media outlets that they will sue if any outlet runs the NRA ad's. Doesn't this tell you something people, doesn't this tell you that the guy is full of it. If there is evidence of Barry's position on guns that he doesn't want you to bear arms, and that his is cowardly saying he will sue if there ads continue to appear, doesn't that tell you that he is hiding something. DAM PEOPLE wake the hell up. This man has change his mind on a lot of stuff to get your vote and a lot of you are too stupid to understand. Barry is just plan out making you all look very dumb and if he is elected like the devil he would have pulled the best trick man know of, making people believe that he is not there when he is filled with corrupt, and un-experience..... Dam this guys is good.....but vote and be smart.......McCain 08

Dont trust Obama, offer me somethen besides a comunity orginizer in his early years, became a senator and spent all that time running for president... dont see it sry. Then rase a ruckess over pallen when she is just running for vic. Also she seems to have more experiance to be pres. than he does. The top 2 person to get money from fanny and mack. err, naa Ill stick with McCain....