Insiders: Bush Style Narrows His View

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer. www.phillynews.com (No direct link, free registration is required)

"Former aides say the President's style of decision-making can blind him.
By Ron Hutcheson

Accounts from insiders in the Bush White House describe a tightly controlled, top-down organization that pushes a predetermined agenda, shuns dissenting views, and discourages open debate.

...Critics say the flip side of the legendary discipline of this administration is a near-complete disregard for alternative opinions that sometimes leads to trouble.

In Clarke's view, Bush's reliance on a small circle of aides blinded the President to threats from al-Qaeda and the negative consequences of invading Iraq. O'Neill said the tightly held decision-making process foreclosed any meaningful discussion about the impact of the bigger deficits that resulted from Bush's tax cuts.

Their complaints about the lack of robust internal debate echo the conclusions of some presidential scholars who study White House decision-making.

"George Bush tends to make decisions on the basis of hunch and intuition, and then pulls together groups that confirm his decisions," said Paul C. Light, director of the Center for Public Service at the center-left Brookings Institution. "The only people who are invited to be on the team are people who agree with him."
Bush's management style reflects his personality. He is action-oriented, impatient, and intolerant of lengthy briefings and long debates. He often cites the importance of "instincts" in making decisions..."

Lovely clothes you have on there emperor numbnuts!

This is NOT the United States of America I used to read about growing up in my home country.

utter failure? This absolutely proves that the guy has a case of arrested intellectual development. Most people learn from their mistakes, but all he's learned apparently is every time he screws something up, someone will crawl out of the woodwork and fix it for him. Who does this jackass think he is, Miss Cleo?

Critical thinking is not this administration's strongest suit because that would have interferred with their ideologically based decision-making process.

This asshat doesn't make any real decisions.

They are all made for him.

Not reassuring at all that the President of the United States "tends to make decisions on the basis of hunch and intuition." Hunches and intuition should be reserved only for picking horses and dogs at the track, selecting lottery numbers, doubling down at the blackjack table, choosing door number 1 on "Let's Make a Deal," and eating sushi at a truck stop. And I'm not all that sure about eating sushi at a truck stop.

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Haven't seen your posts before.......but sure do like this one.
"eating sushi at a truck stop" Priceless! L O L

He's always going on about how he relies on his gut feelings. Coming from someone who admits to not having read or travelled much, and who is not a good listener at all -- that worries me! And Republicans who were scolding a previous president for thinking with, ahem, another non-brain body part, are oddly silent about this.

Yeah, I joke about my "woman's intution" but I always try to back it up with something substantive.

Well said, Miss Authoritiva!

Scary-really scary-it is like Hitler-critical thinking is bad? This country was founded on the principles of the "enlightenment" You know Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thom Jefferson types-they must be spinning in their graves-heaven help us! It is the return of the anti-intellectual which BTW has been a general failure in the history of the world

You were booted off a Board of Directors by the Chairman who said you knew nothing about running a business.

You failed in each business venture.

You were low grade business school graduate.

You are our CEO???

I would bump yo tail in one second. You are faux.

www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/8298684.htm?1c

good article.....thanks for posting it

Lucky nobody told him we have nuclear weapons or his "instincts" might have told him to start a thermonuclear war.