I'm off to Chicago shortly to spend a day chaperoning a bunch of eighth-graders going to see the Chicago Symphony and a whole lot of other Chicago-ish things. Fortunately my wife is part of the chaperoning group as well. They told us to prepare for a day of walking, which I did yesterday afternoon by letting myself get roped into an hourlong game of full-court basketball with some big Scandinavian dudes. So yeah, this should be interesting, and I won't be around to do any writing today.
Before I leave you in Rob's capable hands, I wanted to share this video of a story from Dana Perino - not just because I am relentless in my quest to combat silly notions about one of my favorite presidents, but also because it demonstrates so well the importance of basic leadership principles that are clearly and sadly missing from the current administration.
I'll let Perino go into the details, but gist of it is that she was extremely upset when one of her predecessors as press secretary, Scott McClelland, published a book trashing President Bush. That prompted a summons to the Oval Office where Bush urged her to forgive McClelland because he believes in the importance of not living life in bitterness. Watch, via Hot Air (sorry about the way the video aligns on the page):
A lot of conservatives got upset with Bush because they felt he didn't really fight the attacks against him, and you can surely argue that this resulted in all kinds of things that have been detrimental to the nation - including the election of Obama, and even ObamaCare.
But what a story like this demonstrates is that Bush approached the presidency by applying leadership principles rather than political principles. His direction to Perino represented exactly what an effective leader would understand, that you can't let your mental energy get sapped by something that makes you angry. And Bush was right. Who remembers Scott McClelland or his small-minded book?
This kind of leadership is something we sorely miss today, when we're stuck with a president who came to the job with no leadership experience, but more to the point, clearly no instincts for it. Can you imagine Obama urging a staff member to forgive a political betryal? That goes against every instict of this administration. They would spend weeks on the attack against the person, and would probably unleash Axelrod and crew to either dig up or manufacture some dirt on the person. For Bush, the presidency was not about him. For Obama, it is about nothing but him.
Also, when you eschew bitterness and embrace forgiveness, look how much happier you end up.
As much as I understand we paid a political price for Bush's disinclination to play political hardball, that is still the right way to lead, and if we had that kind of leadership today . . . well, the list of things that would be different could fill a column way too long to write on a day when I'll be dragging my aching body around Chicago trying to keep up with a bunch of eighth-graders.
