Reading notes

William Saletan observes of Bush’s press conference (transcript) last night:

“And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom.”

That’s the summation President Bush delivered as he wrapped up his press conference Tuesday night. It’s the message he emphasized throughout: Our commitment. Our pledge. Our word. My conviction. Given the stakes in Iraq and the war against terrorism, it would be petty to poke fun at Bush for calling credibility “incredibly important.” His routine misuse of the word “incredible,” while illiterate, is harmless. His misunderstanding of the word “credible,” however, isn’t harmless. It’s catastrophic.

To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today what you said yesterday, and that you do today what you promised yesterday. … When the situation is clear and requires pure courage, this steadfastness is Bush’s most useful trait. But when the situation is unclear, Bush’s notion of credibility turns out to be dangerously unhinged. The only words and deeds that have to match are his. No correspondence to reality is required. …

Isn’t Bush’s shoddy thinking the kind of thing that for many of us got spanked into submission in college? I was led to believe that shoddy thinking is absolutely unacceptable in anyone who’s in a position to influence, manage, lead. So despite my tendency to think lazily if at all, I learned to think clearly. And in every job I’ve held since I’ve been expected to continue thinking clearly if I want to remain employed.

As an employer, I wouldn’t hold it against an employee for not being able to think well, or even for choosing not to think well, but I would never leave that employee in a position wherein sharp thinking skills are a job requirement — that’d be disastrous management on my part. As a taxpaying citizen of the United States, I am a president’s employer; I assess that in this case, the jobholder’s skillset is no match for the job requirements.

Three times, Bush repeated the answer he gave to Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times: “Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it.” Outside Bush’s head, the statement was patently false: The 9/11 threat required action, and Bush failed to deal with it. But inside Bush’s head, the statement was tautological: If there were a threat that required action, Bush would have dealt with it; Bush didn’t deal with it; therefore, there was no threat that required action. The third time Bush repeated this answer — in response to a question about whether he owed an “apology to the American people for failing them prior to 9/11” — he added, “The person responsible for the attacks was Osama Bin Laden.” This is how Bush’s mind works: Only a bad person can bear responsibility for a bad thing. I am a good person. Therefore, I bear no responsibility.

Here’s where I move from unemotional smart business practice to values-based judgment: The willingness to bear responsibility is a necessary condition for human maturity. Without responsibility, one cannot be mature, and without maturity, one cannot be a leader.

[via Mimikatz]