LA Times Article Today On Obama and McCain's Style - No Mention of Bush's Style

[Median Democrat]

Here is an article in the LA Times that discusses the style and temperment of Barack Obama and John McCain, and once again interjects false neutrality, by declaring that both styles have their risks and benefits:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-assess20-2008sep20,0,7459654.story

/snip

"It's about their leadership styles," said Stanley A. Renshon, a scholar of the presidency who is also a psychiatrist. "McCain is a man of trying to do things. Obama is a man who tends to act cautiously and prudently. . . . It's not that one approach is necessarily better; they both come with advantages and risks."

/snip

However, in making this declaration of false neutrality, the article ignores the obvious comparison that should be made: George Bush. How should George Bush's style be described? Well, here is an old article describing Bush's decision making style, and you can draw your own conclusion as to whether McCain or Obama are more similar to Bush:

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1029809,00.html

The Blink Presidency

/snip

Bush is the ultimate "Blink" President, to use author Malcolm Gladwell's catchy term, and recent title, for instantaneous, subconscious decision making. The slogan on Gladwell's book jacket—"Don't Think—Blink!"—is a perfect mantra for an attention- deficit-disordered society, and an apt description of the electric jolt Bush has brought to politics and policy. It certainly was the subtext of the 2004 presidential campaign: Kerry's thinking seemed tortured, paralytic; Bush's blinking seemed strong and decisive.

* * *

This, then, is a moment of no small anguish for the traditional policy establishment, both liberal and conservative. The real division in George W. Bush's Washington is not so much between left and right as between those who act and those who contemplate. Logic would dictate that action without long-term planning is disastrous: that you can't borrow forever, that you can't barge into someone else's region and impose your views without negative consequences.

But expertise and deliberation have never seemed more stodgy, unappealing and unconvincing than they do right now.

/snip

[liberal N proud]

1. No need to mention bu$h

McCain's Style = Bush's Style

[Median Democrat]

2. The Article's False Neutrality Appears In A Vacume...

When it says that Obama and McCain's styles have advantages and disadvantages. By failing to compare either candidate to Bush, it portrays both candidates in a vacume where a President who acts first, and thinks later, might be seen as decisive and forceful. However, on closer examination, people will discover that McCain's thought process is similar to that of Bush, who relied on intuition more than analysis. So, to suggest that both styles are roughly equal is incorrect, because we have 8 years of experience with Bush/McCain's "blink" style of knee jerk decision making.