Character and Leadership

Discussing McCain’s debate performance last night over at the Corner, Rich Lowry hits upon something – but I think rather misses the point (at least from my point of view):

But he was nasty toward Romney, letting his hatred—and I used that word advisedly—show. Of course, he tried to cover it with an occasional forced grin, but it was clear where he was coming from. I find this aspect of McCain's character very unattractive, and it’s not a great quality to have in a president.

I absolutely disagree with this – the flash of anger that McCain displayed, the bubbling inner hatred of his enemies – is an eminently desirable quality in a national leader. It’s exactly why I support John McCain: he’s a strong man who isn’t going to let anyone mess around with him and who, when he fights, will always go right for the jugular.

It is this question – the question of character – which has always left me with my deepest reservations about President Bush and which, in my view, makes Mike Huckabee eminently unsuitable (though, still better than any Democrat) for the Presidency. Simply put: there’s such a thing as being “too Christian” or “too good” (“Christian” in this case being a synonym for “good”) to be in charge. This is a killing fight: do we really want a leader who is going to want to take time out in the middle of a meeting to pray on whether it’s right to kill one or many of these (expletives deleted) under the present circumstances? I know that I don’t.

Remember: if John McCain becomes the Commander-in-Chief, that anger is going to be directed at America’s enemies. When we remember this, I think that the question of whether McCain would have attacked Iraq as Bush did becomes academic – the question isn’t whether McCain would have attacked Iraq, it’s one of how much faster he would have done it and who else he would have attacked along the way.

That’s the core of the case for John McCain. He’s a proven leader – and we know that he won’t chicken out under fire. He isn’t going to need a year or more to grow into the job.

All of this is worth remembering, especially when we consider the chances that President Bush missed after September 11th because, I think, both of his temperament and his inexperience. Bush, for all of his virtues, behaved on September 11th like, how shall I say, a normal human being in this age. That is to say, he seems to have reverted into the 1990’s-style of grief and, in those first critical hours, reverted to the Clintonian role of mourner-in-chief. More than that, in the year and a half that followed, up until the invasion of Iraq, he remained excessively solicitous of the thoughts and feelings of others -Moslems, Europeans, Democrats, etc. Because of this, he missed a real chance to “spin the wheel.”

Think of politics as a locked wheel. It can be spun slightly only one way or another and it wants to tug itself back to the centre. However, when the wheel comes loose, it can be swung one way or another with wild abandon and, when locked again, it will start from the new position that it was locked into. Because he was too concerned with pleasing various groups, Bush pushed the wheel to the right – but not nearly so far as he might have. Instead, he allowed his various friends and opponents to delay events until the wheel locked back into place again and he was open to a renewed assault.

President McCain, on the other hand, would – I believe – have responded to September 11th with his characteristic anger. In so doing, he could have dispensed with cloud of sepia-toned Oprah-derived toxins which entered the American bloodstream with regard to 9-11. A better initial response – one which identified the enemies and promised not “justice” but revenge against them might have stirred the blood of the American people to a lasting anger.

No one talks about the real lost opportunities of the opening months of the present war. That’s largely because they have nothing to do with Iraq, for which the President’s enemies are so eager to blame for all of our ills. Instead, they are all sins of moderation.

It was a mistake to not immediately begin a large expansion in the actual size of the Armed Forces right after September 11th. Indeed, many of the subsequent problems of manpower could have been avoided by treating the event as a total war from day one – when most people believed that it would be one – and calling up all of the reserves and the National Guard for the duration.

Also in error – you may have forgotten but it was discussed in mainstream publications at the time – was the failure to use tactical nuclear weapons against al-Qaeda during its retreat from Afghanistan. The idea, popularized by Democrats, that throwing tens of thousands of troops into those mountain passes would have been a sure-thing is much nonsense. But, on the other hand, the use of a significant number of battlefield nuclear weapons at Tora Bora would almost certainly have killed Bin Laden and would, in any case, have served as an intimidating gesture to the whole world. While I, personally, would have preferred a strategic nuclear response to September 11th, I recognize that the chances of someone in power attempting such a thing are pretty much nil.

“Character” does matter in Presidents – just not in the way it does for average people. Mike Huckabee might remind you more of your co-worker than your boss – and Mitt Romney might be the most morally upstanding and virtuous family man in the whole world, but those things don’t make them qualified to be a war leader.