Presidents and Risk Management

Clinton's hotheaded implosion during a Fox interview over the inadequacy of his administration to confront Bin Laden - it's one of those gifts that keeps giving to bloggers and pundits on the right.

Frankly, I part ways with my conservative friends when it comes to wholeheartedly laying blame on the Clinton administration for the events leading to 9/11. Aside from Sandy Berger - who seems like the one of the most loathsome, gutless creatures to assume an executive role in any presidency - I think Bill Clinton's attitude towards these types of external threats was, for better or worse, exactly what we wanted from our president in those years.

Of course Clinton was driven by poll numbers and approval ratings. And now we know the danger of that way of thinking, and we are living with an almost preposterously opposite situation with George W. Bush. Dennis Miller, on the radio recently, explained it succinctly: He said, and I paraphrase, Bush's approval rating could drop to zero and he'd still be going after people who he thinks are the bad guys in the war on terror. We're going to have to tap him on the shoulder and push him out of the way when the next president is ready to go, because he'll be at the podium giving the same speech - for better or worse, whether we like it or not.

Americans are lousy at understanding risk. On one hand we've got a lot of fearlessness and bravery built into our culture - we do asscrazy things like settling a continent, displacing indigenous people, inventing jazz music, and sending people to the moon. But on the other hand we want government investigations, acrimonious lawsuits and warning stickers for the most obvious dangers - from snowblowers to hurricanes to shark attacks, we're ready to hide under the carpet whenever we watch the second segment of news - the human interest stories about all of the horrible, gruesome, and tremendously interesting things that usually don't happen to our families.

It should be no surprise that our political leadership is entirely schizophrenic when it comes to offering solutions. Our choices have been reduced, in the war on terror, to either ignore, deny, and appease - or kick anybody's ass who looks at us sideways.

Back to the topic of Clinton, though: This guy is digging a hole. He has guaranteed that all of the bureaucrats, people who would have otherwise stayed quiet - will now be coming out of the woodwork to verify that he'd been briefed, but he was preoccupied, and never picked up the call.