1 Boring Old Man

"We will continue to fight vigorously to change the status quo on behalf of all New Yorkers. I’m never going to apologize for that. But we must recognize that this effort will succeed only if our means for changing the status quo are as honorable as our ends."
Eliot Spitzer July 2007

"As we take decisive action, we will keep this in mind: When you are steering a car in a rough patch, one of the worst things you can do is overcorrect. That often results in losing control and can end up with the car in a ditch. Steering through a rough patch requires a steady hand on the wheel and your eyes up on the horizon. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do."
George W. Bush, March 2008

Both Eliot Spitzer and George W. Bush either have good writers or sort of know what to say, but both of these quotes suffer the same fatal flaw. They started with a conclusion, For Spitzer, someone helped him see that his means were not so honorable and he better get out there and say something fast or people would begin to think of him as unscrupulous. For Bush, someone figured out that pretending we’re not in a Recession wasn’t going to fly, so they wrapped some principles around the Conservative conclusion – the one that says do nothing. It’s the one Herbert Hoover followed as he allowed us to plunge into the Great Depression.

In both these cases, we have men saying things that leaders say, without having the essential qualities required for effective leadership – meeting every problem with a fresh, open mind. Both men are preaching principles – principles that might be applicable in some situations, but not the situations where they are being applied. In the case of Spitzer, his basic morality was being questioned, and his empty rhetoric failed to either recognize or correct the problem – therefore, it is empty rhetoric. In Bush’s case, he’s not even acknowledging the problem at all, just preaching a tired set of slogans that no more fit the facts than his repeated denials of global climate change or his ridiculous clinging to his prewar Iraq rhetoric – beyond empty, more in the range of total fantasy.

It brings up the criticism of Barak Obama – that he’s only rhetoric. I’m not sure what that means exactly. It’s hard to imagine what else anyone could be right now. Bush and Cheney have so tangled our country, that the only honest thing to say is rhetoric. At issue, is Obama’s rhetoric "empty" or "full." He says "change." That’s not empty. He opposes this war. That’s not empty. He avoids grandiose promises. That’s not empty either. I’ll give it Hillary on that point as well. I’m kind of put off by her negative stuff, but she’s not talking pies in the sky. I’ll admit to being a former McCain admirer, but no more. He’s setting a new standard for empty rhetoric, following Bush’s lead. "I’m a conservative." Tell them whatever they want to hear.