Great Quote from Fabius Maximus
by tdaxp ~ June 7th, 2008
Is Obama running for the office of Chief Shaman? « Fabius Maximus
Let us hope that Senator Obama is pandering to us, as the alternative might be megalomania.
I’m rooting for incompetence.
Unlike pandering (which does not explain any variance in speech by Obama, because Obama’s pandering appears to be constant) and megalomania (a psychological explanation I’m skeptical of), “incompetence” fits the Bush : Obama :: legacy hire : affirmative action hire analogy that both explains past actions by Obama and predicts future ones.
I’d rather have a wise leader than a foolish one. But if you think we’re getting a bad one anyway, just as well go for Bush III: Barack Obama.
I think this is your...
June 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Great point! As the adage says (slightly modified): “Don’t attribute to insanity what is better explained by incompetence”
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On the other hand, CEO’s tend to have a touch of sociopathy — and famous politicos perhaps have a touch of megalomania. Esp someone considered to almost the Messiah by so many fans.
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I suspect that we will learn which theory is correct over the next four years. Worse, they might both be correct.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Fabius,
Excellent comment!
Something like psychosis goes along with creativity in general [1], so it makes sense that both McCain and Obama would be touched a little. (What normal person enters politics.)
I’m interested in those traits of Obama that make him worse (in otherwords, explaining the variance). There, incompetence seems to be a much simpler explanation.
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/05/21/what-is-creativity.html