A couple paragraphs in to his column today, we get the following from Dana Milbank:
For Obama, a former president of the Harvard Law Review, the response to the Under-bomber has been a veritable Review Revue. And it’s not just a semantic thing: His instinct when facing all types of problems — Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the Fort Hood shootings, the pending Gitmo closing — has led him to the same approach: Order a review. It is a hallmark of his governing style.
Arguably, this is exactly the type of leadership a president should provide, cool and deliberate even in a crisis. After eight years of seat-of-the-pants leadership, calm reflection and reasoned action has much to recommend it; if Dick Cheney were president today, we might already have invaded Iran to punish al-Qaeda for training the accused Nigerian bomber in Yemen.
Milbank then spends the next two pages mocking reviews and “cool and deliberate” leadership, informing us that Obama lacks the necessary fire and anger.
TR
When exactly did Milbank turn into such a douchebag? I remember liking him a few years back.
Stroszek
I wish I got paid to plagiarize last week’s Maureen Dowd rant.
Brick Oven Bill
For a group of individuals whose savior was tortured and crucified by the state they sure do love to torture and crucify.
For a group of individuals whose savior didn’t have a traditional family, they sure do love to talk about traditional families.
asiangrrlMN
Grrrrrrrrrrr…..GRRRRRRRR! That is all I have to say to Milbank.
Napoleon
. . . If we all meet in a bar after the WaPo folds the first round is on me.
ET
I have to wonder what Milbank thinks the president should do? Run around like a chicken with it’s head cut off? Make it look like he is “doing something” even if it all just for show? “Do” things that are a joke?
Apparently Milbank doesn’t understand what “review” means. In case this case review means figuring out what the hell “went wrong” and see what if anything can be done within certain constraints.
Seems like Milbank is writing a piece that looks like he is being “tough” on the president even if on closer examination, said piece is useless and tells no one anything at all.
dmsilev
@TR: He was always a douche. Difference is, a few years ago he was making fun of the Bushies so people like us overlooked the douchiness.
See also Dowd, Maureen.
-dms
kay
There’s another, more important difference.
After he conducts the review he announces what he found out, fairly plainly. I recognize he’s not telling us everything, but you do get the feeling he’s finding out and getting back to you, which is really all I ever asked. I know people and systems screw up and fail, and I never thought I was “safe”. I just want someone in charge to tell me what’s going on, and get on with it.
It’s less dramatic, but in a sane country that approach should provide more comfort than strutting around making belligerent statements and threats.
El Cid
It wouldn’t matter how much time you spent — Milbank would never, ever grasp any reason you gave for why this is so douche-y, because he’ll point out that he’s mocking ‘both’ sides.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Hell yeah. But we’d have to have a moment of silence for the online comments:
Derelict
I think Milbank, like the rest of the Village, has come to believe that “style” is the be-all, end-all of governing–actual results and impacts are meaningless.
Indeed, from the Villagers’ perspective, the sine-qua-non of effective governance was George Bush. He did not deliberate, he simply reacted. And the results of such non-considered actions were usually catastrophic. Which in turn demanded further action, about which Bush would also refuse to deliberate, thus producing yet more catastrophe and yet more ill-considered action.
For the Villagers, the non-stop action was terrific. For everyone else caught up in the serial disasters, it wasn’t so great. But those are the little people, and they deserve everything they get for being little people.
Brick Oven Bill
This is another reason why Balloon Juice is better than the Washington Post. The Washington Post again in this case is factually incorrect.
Obama took action right away. He blamed the Europeans, a la Officer Crowley, and then directed the Europeans to make changes in their airport security. The Europeans then promptly blew him off. Good for the Europeans.
Janet, by the way, is still toast.
#3 is an imposter.
Max
I think that all of the Sullivans and Quinns and Milbanks, who call for someone to be “fired” at the drop of the hat, should live by their own standards… the next time they get something wrong, regardless of circumstances, they should be fired.
It’s the same old position of governing from fear and it just doesn’t work. Obama knows this.
I’m a manager, the head of my department, with my nearest supervisor 1000 miles away. I am, in effect, the President of my location and I have considerable autonomy to “govern” or manage at my discretion, my company doesn’t dictate to its people at my level. With that said, I could manage my team with a heavy hand and make them afraid to make an error, or, I can empower my team, and give them the room and tools to succeed. That doesn’t mean that I don’t address when mistakes are made, but my team isn’t so frozen by making the wrong decision, that they end up making no decision.
Many of my counterparts manage the way the neocons want Obama to govern, thru fear and absolutes, and those teams are not successful. I won Team of the Year last year.
O-bot.
The Grand Panjandrum
I was just thinking about the current President’s demeanor and how he handles these sorts of situations so differently from the last Occupant of the White House. We haven’t seen a lot of grandstanding and fearmongering. He response has been measured and seems quite reasonable to me. One thing is clearly quite wrong in all the reporting on the Pantybomber “failed” terrorist attack. The bomb failed to detonate, but he did succeed in striking fear into the hearts of the establishment media and the Righties. They’ve been running around with their hair on fire since Christmas. Isn’t that the point of terrorism?
geg6
Whew, for a second I thought BOB’s cover had been blown. Good to see that all is right with the world, though. Someone’s fucking with BOB. I like it.
As for Milbank, he’s a certified idiot and emblematic of how bad the WaPo has become. I really wish Ezra and Gene Robinson would get the hell out of that hellhole.
As for the review of the intelligence and security measures and all the dimwits running around screaming for someone’s head (yes, I’m looking at you, Sully), the Today Show had Dana Perino and Anita Dunn on this morning to discuss this very subject. I think it was Matt Lauer doing the interview and he was in full hysteria mode. Most interesting to me was that both Dunn and Perino agreed that not only was it too soon to go around firing people just for show, but that it might even be counterproductive to the nation’s security to do so.
Bipartisanship, bitchez!
TR
@dmsilev:
I suppose that’s it. But Dowd I’ve always hated.
Brick Oven Bill
Decisive action!
Obama demands that Europeans stop acting stupidly.
Personally, I think a better security-approach would be to simply screen people on the terror watch list, who pay cash for airplane tickets, carry no luggage, and whose dads snitch on them to US intelligence agencies in the days before they pay for their ticket in cash, and board the plane with no luggage, and are not selected for screening through the procedures that we, as a society, already fund.
asiangrrlMN
@Max: I agree with you. I have often thought that the pundits and journos and the rest of the Villagers should be held to the same standards as the ones to which they hold others. It would be interesting to see how quickly they backtracked on some of their shit if they had to be held as accountable.
@The Grand Panjandrum: Damn fucking right. I have constantly said that the one thing I really appreciate about Obama is that he actually mulls over an issue from all sides and seems to actually care that he’s making the best decision possible. What a refreshing change from ‘The Decider.’
SGEW
Speaking of the dreaded WaPo, and our wishful death watch, I hope everyone read Ezra “Why The Hell Am I Being Paid By WaPo?” Klein’s magnificent post, “Articles That Make Me Believe America Will Not be a Superpower in 50 Years”
(Emphasis in original)
[Warning: link goes to WaPo]
Do you think it’s better for Ezra’s employment benefits if he quits or if he’s fired?
CalD
Milbank is a dishrag. But John Judis is a fucking idiot. There, I said it.
georgia pig
Milbank is an object lesson for the risks of putting too much faith in the “mocking” school of quasi-journalism, i.e., mocking becomes a cover for a lack of real journalism. Milbank doesn’t know how (or is too lazy and/or corrupted) to build on the theme he establishes in the paragraphs quoted, so he falls back on the hackneyed artifices of a gossip columnist. A Seymour Hersh, for example, would add a lot of sourced material that would flesh the distinction out in a more meaningful way by taking it to another level, e.g., a cool style is great, but what is the actual deliberative process and what are its strengths and weaknesses. Milbank really doesn’t have anything to report or any particularly valuable insights. Matt Taibbi risks this at times, some of the stuff he writes appears to be done for cheap effects. That said, at least Taibbi is usually funny. Milbank rarely is.
kay
@SGEW:
Thanks. The single most under-appreciated aspect of Obama’s Presidency, as far as I’m concerned, is how how hard he works. I completely understand why he doesn’t go to parties with Halperin. He works a lot and then he goes home, I assume.
I read the WSJ, and I recall how Karl Rove announced Obama was “lazy” based on….nothing, during the campaign. I always felt that theme was race-based, and I still do. I don’t think Obama could get away with Bush’s generous vacation schedule, or 5 P.M. quitting time.
I’m curious if any main stream journalist will recognize the obvious and point it out: Obama works really hard.
The Ghost of Richard Jaeckel
Having Dana Perino and Matt Lauer on the same set must’ve been sucking in IQ points from 20 blocks around.
Emma
Kay: After he conducts the review he announces what he found out, fairly plainly. I recognize he’s not telling us everything, but you do get the feeling he’s finding out and getting back to you, which is really all I ever asked.
This. Exactly.
georgia pig
@The Ghost of Richard Jaeckel: What a great handle. He was the Kevin Bacon of his time.
valdivia
@Max:
Just admiration from one O-Bot to another. That is all. :-)
valdivia
@CalD:
Judis has been in a really weird mode since primary days. But this little jewel takes the cake. head:desk.
Shell
Guess the neo-cons won’t be happy until Obama fake-flies onto an aircraft carrier, and then weeps on camera a la Glenn Beck.
Obama needs to take his cue from Yeats.:
William Butler Yeats’ Poem “The Second Coming” Analyzed
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Violet
@dmsilev:
I can’t stand Dowd. Never have liked her, even though occasionally she writes a column I find vaguely amusing or insightful. Even stopped clocks are right twice a day.
@The Ghost of Richard Jaeckel: Couldn’t quite figure Perino out today. She seemed to be saying that Obama was doing the right thing by reviewing the evidence before firing someone. Was she just trying to tick off Andrew Sullivan?
Ash Can
@ET:
This concisely describes 98% of what all of these professional jerk-offs write. I have to wonder if Ezra Klein cries himself to sleep every night.
ChrisB
Like Broder said, just make a decision. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong.
gopher2b
@ET:
He should have immediately boarded Air Force (leaving Michelle in the girls on the ground) and waited for Biden to tell him it was safe to land.
Nutella
re: the Washington Post, Jay Rosen tweeted today “They didn’t want Dan Froomkin. But they do want this.”
Link goes to Wapo video of bikini-clad PETA protesters in DC.
Vital information and commentary from our nation’s capital!
S. cerevisiae
@Max: Exactly right on the management styles.
Over the years I have worked in both types of environments and I can say from experience that heavy-handed, fear-driven management puts morale in the toilet and gets a hell of a lot less work done. I bet your office is a pleasure to work at.
CalD
@georgia pig: Very astute analysis.
mandarama
@SGEW:
Ouch, that one’s gonna leave a mark! Good for Ezra.
Tecumseh
I’ve been kind of down on Obama for folding (sorta again) like a cheap tent on the terrorism thing in that he, at first, did the “acting like an adult” thing and tried to downplay everything, but stopped doing so after all that squawking from Republicans and the Press for not sufficiently running around with his head cut off. Since then, he has spent the past week making an effort to show that it’s cut off a little and being defensive about his calmer, low-key approach.
It’s things like Milbank’s column, however, that shows that in today’s news, it’s impossible to do the adult thing because the press, especially the cable news channels, NEED people to run around squawking and if they don’t get it, they’ll bang their fist on the tables and demand it. Obama may have folded a bit but like a lot of things that’s gone on, it’s somewhat due to the fact Washington won’t let him do otherwise.
Elie
Milbank is just churning out something so that he can get paid — doenst matter much about the details or insightfulness or accuracy…
On another point, I believe some heads will roll for this on this…I am sure that team Obama may be suspicious about whether some actually did connect the dots but chose not to connect them for others for political reasons…remember the Cheneyites and Bushites are still pretty much in place in these agencies — there hasnt been enough time to find and purge all of the key “operatives” yet. After this, they will be making the time, I am sure…
Sophist
Which makes Milbank, what, a stopped digital clock?