Obama - is he ready to lead?
Below is the latest and brightest attempt so far by McCain to go negative on Obama. [Much better than the previous clip, which is spectacularly unfunny].
The video follows the, by now, traditional line of attack, which aims to portray Obama as glitzy, but hollow. I.e., charismatic but lacking substance. The video makes a somewhat less than subtle comparison with Britney Spears, and then makes the dooming question: Is he ready to lead?
Fair enough. From then on, however, the video becomes logically flawed. It goes on to expose two of Obama’s stances, as an illustration of the said thesis: opposition to offshore drilling, and raising electricity taxes. The idea behind this is, I think, to illustrate the prior thesis. Obama is not ready to lead because his policies are bad. Where is the flawed logic? Well, Obama, like Bush Jr., can turn out to be very good at leading. Now, whether the policies that come out of the business of leading are good or bad, is an entirely different story [or fish food, to translate a Romanian expression]. Obama can be very ready to lead, can be good at leading, and still his policies could be bad. Two different issues here, conflated by a stiff, uninspired and uninspiring McCain campaign. If I had one advice to give to McCain, that would be: hire Stephen Colbert! But, then again, his price tag might be beyond McCain’s budget.
More about this on Justin Webb’s blog.
31 Jul 2008 Skybar One
“Now, whether the policies that come out of the business of leading are good or bad, is an entirely different story”
No. This is a logical fallacy. If you are a good leader, your policies can’t be wrong. Is the medic that maims his pacient a good medic because his practice and the results of it are not related to each other?
machiavellians last blog post..Reflectii de miez de zi
I agree. In principle, if you are a ‘good leader’, your policies must also be ‘good’, i.e. effect a change for the better among your constituency. But see, this is exactly my argument - while the first part of the video obliquely questioned Obama’s qualities as a leader [his leadership skills], the second half exposed the inapropriacy of two of his policies. In my view, there is a difference between ‘being good at leading’ and ‘being a good leader.’ Hitler was ‘good at leading’, for instance, even though his actions brought not such brilliant results for many of his citizens, right? Conversely, I say that Videanu was a ‘good leader’, i.e. his policies were by and large the right ones, whereas his skills as a leader were subpar [bad communicator etc.]
Another logical fallacy. Being good at leading is equivalent with being a good leader. And I can explain this.
For example, you mentioned “bad communicator”. But how can a leader using bad communication convince his subordinates what the best course of action should be? Therefore, because his policies were essentially good and because a person bad at leading cannot sustain good policies, he is necessarily good at leading. It’s just like using the old logical fallacy of “theory and practice”. Like Schopenhauer observed it very clearly in The Art of Controversy, if the practical application is not good, the theory cannot be good aswell.
Besides, Hitler was not even “good at leading”. He arived at theBe top due to fortunate events (the threat of communism, the Versailles Treaty, etc) and because of capable and well instructed men who taught him all there was to know and did what was neccesary to do. In today’s terms we could be compared to a “star”.
machiavellians last blog post..Reflectii de miez de zi
I have the impression that we may have somewhat different approaches to this issue - nonetheless, I find your argument interesting. Allow me to retort.
I see why you could consider my argument a fallacy - my ‘bad communicator’ example was not the best, and there I conflated several issues: first, the fact that a person ‘good at leading’ must be good at organizing her staff and at implementing her policies of choice. If you want, you can compare the concept of a ‘good leader’ to that of a ‘good manager.’ Now, in the example of a ‘bad communicator’, I did not touch upon the idea of a good manager, but instead referred to ‘communication skills’ [used in the sense of reaching out to the wider audience, i.e. the political constituency - not to one's subordinates].
I agree with your point - but it does not capture my logical mechanism used in that example. I did not talk about causation there, but of mere facts/opinions. In my opinion, Videanu’s policies were the right ones for Bucharest. He had the right ideas, and transposed them into practice to various degrees of success. But his mediocre leadership skills [reflected in his poor communication to his political constituency] ultimately prevented him from sustaining his policies over the long run [reflecting in his bad poll ratings and ultimately in his unwillingness to run for re-election].
Leaving aside Schopenhauer’s proposition, with which one can or cannot agree, I must stress here we don’t have a theory vs. practice dichotomy. Being a good leader means having good leadership skills [managerial and communication]. This usually allows one to implement the policies she wants, and obtain desired outcomes.
And here is where the second example, that of Hitler, comes into play. I beg to differ with your point - I actually believe that Hitler was good at leading [leaving aside the string of fortuitous events that ultimately led him to power]. Once he was in power, he surrounded himself with capable men and was able to orchestrate his policies in an efficient and effective way. Naturally, he too made mistakes, but overall he was able to achieve tremendous outcomes in a short period of time: rearming the Bundeswehr, waging a two-front war and conquering most of continental Europe, exterminating the Jewish population in Germany etc.
Most people consider Hitler’s policies as bad. If we are to agree with 1) that Hitler was good at leading [i.e. he organized his staff well and implemented his desired policies in an effective manner], and 2) that his policies are ‘bad’, then we can see how a person ‘good at leading’ can effect ‘bad outcomes.’
Coming back to the Obama video, again I must say that I see a clear lack of consistency between argument 1 - Obama is not ready to lead [he will not be good at leading because unexperienced etc.] and argument 2 - Obama’s policies are bad. Do you see a clear causation here, coz I don’t.