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Originally Posted by Lebell
I don't hold it against any president that surrounds himself with like minded advisors; I mean, do you really go out of your way to find people to disagree with you?
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Lincoln did. He filled his cabinet with the people who ran against him for president. He called it his "Team of Rivals".
When JFK was dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, he brought in all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds and political philosophies, listened to them argue policy for a while, and made his decisions based on what seemed best to him from what he heard.
I mean, no, I don't deliberately seek out those who fundamentally disagree with me to give me advice, but I admire that there have been presidents that do. Seems to me that if I was in a position of real power, where my decision would directly affect the lives of millions, I'd want to get a second opinion on a lot of my thinking. I'd want something outside my own head to sanity-check my planning and reasoning. It frightens me that Bush avoids that.
I know it's understandable, my question is: do you think it's wise? Do the upsides outweigh the risks? What ARE the upsides and risks as you see them?
(Edit, because I KNEW I left something out) You know, this is an interesting question even beyond the current presidential term. I believe I'd be just as disturbed by presidential insularity if it was a moderate liberal in power whose decisions I agreed with 100%. I don't intend this to be a discussion of Bush or his policies or whatever, so much as a discussion about the style of staff management he practices.
A couple years ago, I was Executive Vice President of a company that had a staff of 15. Some of our most productive meetings included downright arguments about how to proceed with certain technical or business matters. We always left the table knowing we'd thorougly gone over everything needing going over, and I was generally always satisfied that the optimal solution got chosen. Not everyone left the table thinking that necessarily, but everyone left knowing they'd gotten heard out, at least. We made the right choices on some hard decisions around that conference table, but I always knew my choices were grounded in my team's knowledge, not just my own. We could even change course, when that was appropriate. It was a really effective way to run things.