Another President Who Governs By Polls
by Big Dog on Jan 9, 2009 at 13:08 Political
Leadership is the ability to influence people to willingly follow those in charge. A true leader inspires people to do things and to accomplish great deeds. Those who are not leaders just go along to get along. People want to be led. They want someone in charge and they want someone who takes decisions. Well, at least they used to.
Enter Barack Obama. He won the last election by a pretty good margin and he did it by promising that government would take care of every little thing that comes along. Health care, jobs, money if you are poor, it did not matter because Obama and his Democrats would provide it. The people who elected him and who want these things have lost the ability to be independent. They have lost the will to thrive. These are people who feel they are unable to do for themselves so they must rely on government to do it for them.
George Bush, for all his failings, is a man of principle. One can argue about the principles involved but Bush did not use polls to govern. He led this country and he took unpopular stands in order to keep it safe. He will leave with about a 30% approval rating but he is not worried about that because he said that he did not govern by polls, he took decisions he thought were in the best interest of the country. Yes, there is debate as to whether they were in the best interest. Perhaps we can say that Bush was not a great leader because he failed to get people to willingly follow.
Or is that the case? The members of the military, by and large, support him and what we are doing. Perhaps they are not the dumb, uneducated people that John Kerry described but are well informed instead. The people who disapprove of our safety or who blindly follow Barack Obama would be a closer fit to the people John Kerry described, or to paraphrase; If you don’t stay in school and get a good education you become a liberal.
George Bush had high approval ratings and was perceived as doing a good job especially after 9/11. The Democrats and their media wing could not allow this so they tried to systematically destroy the president for political gain. They were successful in 2006 and 2008 but after January 20th they will hove only themselves to blame.
Barack Obama is not a leader. He has never been in charge of anything and his boldest move in office was to vote “present”. Obama, like Clinton before him, relies on polls. His transition team is now using polls and focus groups to try to ram a stimulus package through Congress. This package will undoubtedly cost over a TRILLION dollars and will prolong the recession and might well drive us into a depression.
[note]If spending money is the answer to the financial crisis then we should not be experiencing one because our government has done nothing but spend.[/note]
Relying on focus groups and polls is not leadership. The military would not be effective if leaders took a poll before every mission. Soldiers follow leaders. Outside the military people will follow a leader.
Unfortunately, in hard times people will also follow charismatic individuals who promise them the world. The people somehow lose focus on being independent and follow the person who says what they want to hear. Jim Jones, a charismatic leader, led hundreds of people who were looking for something better, something better he promised to deliver. He got them to drink poisoned Kool-Aid in a mass suicide. This is where we get the term, “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
Many in this country drank the Obama/Democratic/liberal Kool-Aid because the sainted one is a charismatic person who was able to make them believe he has the answers. Have those who consumed that Kool-Aid caused the suicide of this nation?
Obama’s decisions are based on polls which means that he is trying to govern by using popular decisions to get things accomplished. This is a recipe for disaster as Clinton demonstrated. He was not a great president and he brought us the events of 9/11. Clinton diddled while Rome burned.
“Leadership” by poll watching is ineffective and counterproductive. The popular position is not always the correct position and depending upon where polls are taken and who is asked, any preconceived conclusion can be obtained.
Sometimes a true leader must take an unpopular decision. When some serious problem exists, people do not take polls to determine how to handle the issue. However, the sheeple in this nation have decided to put their faith in a Kool-Aid dispensing, charismatic, poll watching, empty suit who could not lead them out of a burning building.
Regardless of what the polls say…
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Tags: Bush, charisma, leadership, Obama, polls
“Unfortunately, in hard times people will also follow charismatic individuals who promise them the world.”
another example…Adolf Hitler
You are 100% correct.
By the way, how did that work out?
Leadership by poll? That horse died in the 90’s and yet you’re dragging it back out to beat some more? Poor thing. Smells bad.
At what point do you stop considering it a virtue to just ignore the will of the people and drive on into lunacy and party suicide?
Bush came in with a recession and he’s leaving with one. In the middle of that the economy was never that strong. He ate cake and played guitar while people drowned in New Orleans. He waged two wars in two countries which we are still fighting even though both have been declared victories several different times. He still hasn’t caught the man responsible for 9/11.
That’s what you fail to note in your post above. Bush is unpopular not because he refused to govern by polls but because those decisions have not left us any better off and in many ways are directly responsible for the misery our country is in right now.
So if we are attacked by terrorists under Obama, is that Bush’s fault? Surely it is if Clinton caused 9/11, right? Let’s hope we don’t have to have that argument for real though…
Adam, do you really believe the stuff you say or is it just to piss people off?
Adam believes it because he is a dyed in the wool liberal. He believes that people cannot take care of themselves and he loves to say things about stuff he has no clue on.
Take New Orleans. This was a media driven problem to cover for DEMOCRATS who could not do their jobs. Adam and his ilk laid the blame on Bush when Bush could not go fix it himself and it would be unconstitutional for him to intervene in a state’s business. Adam and his lib buddies do not understand the Constitution which is why they ignore it. Katrina was a failure at the state and local level but you never hear the libs say that. They lay it on the feds because they all expect the feds to do for them because they are unable to do for themselves. People in NO refused to leave and the mayor refused to use 500 buses to force them out and then when it takes two weeks to rescue people from roof tops, Bush is labeled as the one who could not do his job. A governor fails to ask for federal help even when the feds were prodding her and it is Bush’s fault. FEMA had its issues but I have worked with FEMA and am part of the National Incident Command System. I know people who were there and running it from the federal level. Once they overcame the failure of state DEMOCRATS, they were able to get things done. Look at how it went during Ike with a competent Republican governor.
No, Bush got the blame because liberals did not want the world to know Democrats can’t lead and they knew it could be used for political gain. They did not want people to see what an abject failure their programs had been. Nearly all the population was Democrat and 67% blacks in poverty on government programs. They were not able to take care of themselves because they were too accustomed to government doing for them.
We have had several bad disasters in predominantly white communities, fairly conservative communities and the people took care of themselves. FEMA did not rush in and Kanye West was not saying Bush hates white people.
Different mentality and Adam subscribes to the first. It is because he thinks government is there to take care of people’s every need.
He says the economy was never that strong but EVERY economic indicator was as good as Clinton’s or better and Adam and his ilk think Clinton had a wonderful economy. That is the problem. The numbers can be the same and Bush was bad and Clinton was good because the MSM tells them that.
And Adam shows my point about the Constitution. He says that Bush has waged two wars in two countries and that is not true. The UNITED STATES has waged two wars in two countries and the Congress authorized it including nearly every Democrat. Then, when things got tough the Dems cried that they were tricked or did not know. That is a lie, once again for political purposes. These are not Bush’s wars, they are our country’s. If the Dems did not want to go they could have voted no. Also, a huge majority of the country wanted us to go so Adam and his ilk should be happy because we went with the polls.
That horse did not die in the 90s when the news reports that Obama is using polls and focus groups to push his stimulus package (that should not be pushed).
One last thing, to get it in the open and keep the jerks on the left from once again rewriting history. Clinton IS responsible for 9/11 because he did not act on terror as acts of war but as crimes. Osama bin Laden has specifically said that Clinton’s response to the Blackhawk Down incident led him to attack America. Therefore, the guy the left believes more than our own president specifically said he attacked us because of Clinton’s inaction which makes Clinton responsible.
There has been no terrorist who said that he was acting because of Bush’s inaction. If they attack us on Obama’s watch it will not be Bush’s fault.
It will be the test of Obama that Biden promised us would come. No one, not even Adam, could make the case that Bush failed to act.
However, I agree with Adam that I hope we never have to argue that issue for real.
Big Dog, thanks for again taking us back to reality, and I am thankful it still exits.
Carla,
Bush has done good and bad. I just know that we have not been attacked since 9/11 and that Democrats are as much to blame (more so really) for the economy.
Obama was praised as the savior but I doubt that will happen. In a year he will have low numbers, like Congress.
Thanks for commenting. Please tell your friends to stop by and have a look around.
BD
Obama’s stimulus package will be a disaster for our economy and therefore our country. He claims (falsely) that a majority of Americans are behind him on this. This is why he is so desperate to have 80 votes in the Senate. This will give him cover when his plan ultimately fails. The MSM will give him a pass regardless but if Republicans stand firm against him then he and his party will own it and the outcome.
Absolutely. The Republicans should not give anything that can be used against them. Make the Democrats pass it on their own so they HAVE to take responsibility.
This is what happened with the first stimulus. Republicans voted against it but so did enough Democrats that it would have passed if they voted for it. Pelosi told the ones in vulnerable districts to vote against it and then railed when Republicans did not support it. Then, in the campaign they blamed all the problems on Republicans giving to rich Wall Street people.
Make them do it and hold them accountable. We cannot make it easy for him to get what he wants and we cannot make it easy for them to blame it on Republicans.