Hello World.
I heard someone comment that Obama was simply an "empty suit" and did nothing himself, and that he was totally unable to speak without a teleprompter. I was surprised. I thought "no, isn't he talking about the previous president?" I was forced to concede that even that president did some good of his own volition, such as working to combat aids in Africa...
After thinking about it a bit more, I came to the conclusion that no president runs the country by himself. A huge group of advisors, cabinet ministers, researchers, military, and security professionals distills and filters incredible amounts of information for presentation to the top man. Hopefully they do a good job. Maybe the president has a brain trust, a group of outside advisors, to serve as balance. So, really, something similar to what we hope happens in our democracy goes on: A carefully selected group of people are able to filter the right information to the president so that he can make good decisions.
So, in the end, I agree that a large number of people are at work in shaping the presiden'ts decisions. This however, does NOT mean that he is an "empty suit", it is simply the way things work in this modern world. It's probably a desirable way for things to work.
As an afterthought, this conversation made me realize that most of us seek out news sources that reinforce our pre-existing thoughts and views, and then don't look too closely at the sources or logic of things. Who can you trust in todays news/pundit/blogosphere world?
That's really the question.
I heard someone comment that Obama was simply an "empty suit" and did nothing himself, and that he was totally unable to speak without a teleprompter. I was surprised. I thought "no, isn't he talking about the previous president?" I was forced to concede that even that president did some good of his own volition, such as working to combat aids in Africa...
After thinking about it a bit more, I came to the conclusion that no president runs the country by himself. A huge group of advisors, cabinet ministers, researchers, military, and security professionals distills and filters incredible amounts of information for presentation to the top man. Hopefully they do a good job. Maybe the president has a brain trust, a group of outside advisors, to serve as balance. So, really, something similar to what we hope happens in our democracy goes on: A carefully selected group of people are able to filter the right information to the president so that he can make good decisions.
So, in the end, I agree that a large number of people are at work in shaping the presiden'ts decisions. This however, does NOT mean that he is an "empty suit", it is simply the way things work in this modern world. It's probably a desirable way for things to work.
As an afterthought, this conversation made me realize that most of us seek out news sources that reinforce our pre-existing thoughts and views, and then don't look too closely at the sources or logic of things. Who can you trust in todays news/pundit/blogosphere world?
That's really the question.
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