As Pretty Lady's dear friend put it this week--Harvard Business graduate, author, successful international businessman and public speaker that he is--it is perfectly possible for an utterly inexperienced person to succeed as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. All he has to do is work hard, study his industry, learn from his mistakes, plan ahead, organize, consult experts, form good relationships, make the right decisions at the right times, and presto! Success!
However, were this same successful CEO to hire a person off the street to replace him--with no industry knowledge, no connections, no history of forging solid relationships, no organizational network, and untested decision-making skills--he would, indeed, be crazy.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Experience Issue
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6 comments:
Pretty Lady
“were this same successful CEO to hire a person off the street”
Why not “hire a drunkard sleeping in the gutter in his own vomit” – or is that too much?
Might not “hire a manager of a successful small company” be more accurate? A manager who stood up to his/her own Board of Directors, cut costly executive perks, and was popular with his/her customers. Of course such a hire might still be a stretch but not so much as your metaphor.
Sure, we'll go with that. What's the Bush Doctrine, again?
Which iteration? I believe there were three or four versions, none of which were very familiar to Mr. Gibson. Gibson's quoting Palin's "exact words" to her was also stupidly wrong. Palin may be incompetent for the job she seeks but Gibson proved he was incompetent for the job he has.
Is there a reason to attack Gibson right now? It seems to me that he did the best he could, given that he was interviewing someone who was completely clueless about foreign policy. If he was too hard on her, there might be a backlash, and if he was too soft on her, likewise.
The bottom line is that I expect a candidate for high office to have a body of knowledge to draw upon, related to that office. It is painfully obvious that Palin does not have that knowledge. That's a far more dire situation than a TV interviewer not having an extensive depth of foreign policy knowledge, though this is a disgraceful state of affairs as well.
Gibson was almost certainly picked to do the interview because he is a relative lightweight. That in itself should tell us all we need to know.
Pretty Lady
Is there a reason to attack Gibson right now?
Perhaps. See:
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=29535
I am agreed that Palin hasn't the experience for the position she seeks. But fair is fair. Let her show it without the potshots, ambuscades, snipes, and "gotcha" hunts. Otherwise, she wins the sympathy vote.
"cut costly executive perks"? Huh? Like the Bridge to Nowhere, which Palin supported before it became unpopular? And kept the money. Who took a per diem for staying at home? Who wanted to sell the executive plane, but botched the job? Who is under investigation for a breach of ethics, tried to fire the librarian for having books on the shelf she didn't like, supports abstinence-only family planning even though it didn't work in her own family...this is without going into the creationist, gun-control, and environmental issues. So while the Republicans are blatantly spreading lies about Obama (obviously for want of any real material), one should not ask the vice-presidential candidate pointed questions? Gibson being "wrong" does not make Palin right.
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