Another worth-reading editorial by Peggy Noonan in today’s WSJ. Subject is Obama’s “deliberative” process re: Afghanistan.
I thought the following thoughts had relevance beyond Afghanistan and politics.
Thought can be harder than action, weighing plans as hard as choosing and executing one of them. A question of consequence deserves pondering.
All often depends on the outcome. If a long pondered decision is sound and ends in success, history will not say the decision-maker was indecisive and Hamlet-like. If the decision results in failure, history will not celebrate a decision-maker’s wonderfully cerebral deliberative style.
The country’s mood now is intensely bottom-line. Americans aren’t concerned about Afghanistan because they are swept by democratic feeling and certain world peace will be enhanced if Afghans are able to vote in honest elections. They aren’t driven only by indignation that the Afghan government is corrupt, which it is. And Americans aren’t motivated primarily by concern about Afghanistan’s inadequate infrastructure. They’re concerned about their own.
WSJ, Just the Facts, Mr. President, Nov. 12, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703683804574531950422058942.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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