We've discussed this before, but it bears repeating. The Mullings Law of Managerial Symmetry reads:
"A" people hire other "A" people; "B" people hire "C" people.
If you've worked in an organization of any size you will have noticed that smart, energetic, creative people seem to clump together in the "hot" teams. These "hot" teams tend to be led by smart, energetic, creative people - "A" people.
You will also have noticed that, in larger organizations, dullards also tend to find each other; those teams are typically led by similarly lackluster people - "B" people.
"A" people want to be surrounded by other "A" people. "B" people think, by surrounding themselves with even weaker people, they will look stronger by comparison.
Here's the team America has put on the field to deal with the Iraqis, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the French and the Germans:
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Colin Powell
Don Rumsfeld
Condoleeza Rice
Find me a "B" person in that group. Much less a "C" person.
Here's the group the Democrats have put together in opposition to the "A" team:
Ted Kennedy
Robert Byrd
Barbara Boxer
Nancy Pelosi
Gerhard Schroeder
Anyone - any fair-minded person - who had been harboring any doubts about the President as a man, had those doubts dispelled watching him first on Saturday and then in Houston talking about the Columbia crew. Hardened White House reporters were talking about the simple humanity of the man as he met with the families of the lost Astronauts - without cameras and without fanfare - and offered a nation's condolences.
Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations and showed them the evidence of what his colleagues there already knew to be true, but were hoping they would not have to confront: Saddam Hussein is a lying sack of sand.
The evidence of Iraqi cheating and lying was presented in word and picture; undeniable and indisputable.
Except by the Iraqis, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and the French.
The French are trying to sound tough, but everyone in the entire building on 1st Avenue knows they will vote for whatever Resolution the United States puts before the Security Council. Diplomatic niceties forbid open, derisive laughter directed at a colleague, so the French think they're getting away with it.
The New York Times had this to say,
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who opposes a U.S.-led attack, said Powell repeated information that was already known and said the administration had not shown that war was the only way to disarm Iraq."
The LA Times said Senator Kennedy, "called on Bush to explain strategies for a potential invasion of Iraq and its postwar governance, and to tell the public how many military and civilian lives could be at risk in the event of war," after having given the Secretary good marks for his presentation.
How many military and civilian lives could be at risk, Senator, if we allow Saddam to grow another couple of hundred liters of those little bugs Secretary Powell was talking about?
Then Barbara Boxer had some staffer write a line she liked so much she repeated it at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing when she suggested to Secretary Powell that the Administration's policy with regard to North Korea was one of "designed neglect."
This is a play on the famous phrase originated by DEMOCRAT Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who wrote in a memo to his then-boss Richard Nixon that "the issue of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect.'"
Secretary Powell misheard her and said that the Administration had not engaged in "benign neglect" toward North Korea. Boxer repeated her pet phrase and Secretary Powell said he rejected that construct, too.
"I understand," Boxer said. But she doesn't.
She's not an "A" person.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to a roundup of editorial comment about Secretary Powell's speech to the UN, and a link to the LA Times article.
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