Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Why I Like Fred Thompson

The Daily Telegraph has a piece out today which shows that Fred Thompson does not have the fire in his belly of the other candidates for the highest office in the land. I admire that. Why don't we have people who are less than enthusiastic about wanting to take on the responsibilities of being the leader of the Free World. As Thomas Jefferson once said: "Any man who would actively seek political office is not worthy of it." And this from a man who desperately wanted to be President.
Another hit on Thompson is that he is lazy. Fine with me, hyper energetic lawmakers are more of a problem than a blessing. As Count von Moltke, the guy credited with developing the Prussian General Staff used to do, dividing up people into four different areas of abilities can reveal a lot, and make it easier to pick the best person for the job.
Moltke used Hard Working/Lazy, and Stupid/Smart as his categories. Naturally, the Hard Working Smart guys were put into position as the Chief of Staff of each of their units. Interestingly, the Smart but Lazy ones usually became the commanders of those units. The reason according to Moltke, was that they would always make the best decisions with the least amount of effort, and could rely on their Smart and Hard Working Chief of Staffs to solve all of the problems.
Stupid and Lazy was not necessarily a bad thing, since they were not likely to do anything, good or bad. Which of course leaves us with Stupid and Hard Working. These are the people who energetically endeavor to screw things up. Think Jimmy Carter. Sure Jimmy had to be smart to pass through the Navy's nuclear engineering school, but that doesn't mean that he knew what he was doing as President. Remember, this is the President who personally managed who got to use the White House tennis courts, but couldn't figure out what to do when US sovereign territory was attacked.

That's why I am going with the guy who probably doesn't want the job. He is my kind of politician.

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