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Friday June 4, 2004
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I was on Fox the other day with some guy from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was a perfectly nice fellow. We chatted in the green room about this and that. He gave me his business card which indicated he was a "Non-Proliferation Specialist."
When the program started, host Greg Jarrett asked him if he thought we were making progress in Iraq. He said we were not. He said we needed to withdraw our troops.
I said that he had to say that or else "he would have to get a job with the Carnegie Endowment for International War" which brought gales of laughter from neither Jarrett nor the non-proliferation expert.
After the segment was over, I asked him why he was so negative about Iraq. He told me that he was appalled that "political people" had been chosen as the interim leaders - not specialists in governance.
Happily - as I said - the segment was over because I was rendered speechless.
Dear Mr. Mullings
Would you have me believe that any one, in any circumstance, could say any thing to which you couldn't immediately respond?
Signed,
Don Rickles
Well, not speechless, but I had to take a breath before I answered.
I told him that he didn't understand that it was "political people" who made things happen in a democratic society because it was "political people" who understood the nature of compromise to get as close to a goal as possible.
People from the Carnegie Foundation for Peace - or, for that matter, the United Nations - are the same people who invented the City Manager form of municipal government.
This invention puts the real power in the running of a city into the hands of an appointed - not elected - "professionals in governance" with the mayor and city council acting as the chairman and the board of directors - an impotent chairman and board of directors.
The City Manager form of government was devised by Socialists who believed a "professional" was needed to actually decide matters dealing with the Police and Fire Departments, water and sewer issues; building permits; and street and bridge repairs, while the "political people" - the mayor and the City Council - were capable of deciding crucial matters like the date of Band-O-Rama in 2011.
I have been a City Councilman and I will tell you that having the power to run a city in the hands of people who are responsive to the will and wishes of the voters is a better way - a much better way - of operating.
Obviously, the people now running Iraq are not - currently - responsive to the will of the voters of Iraq because they were appointed by the people who were appointed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer
But, to continue our discussion of the other day, who ran against Ben Franklin? Or John Adams? Or Thomas Jefferson?
Leaders are leaders because they step up to the plate and do what is required of them.
We don't know whether all the new leaders in Iraq will be able to hit major league pitching (to torture that metaphor just a little longer) but we do know that they are the choices of other Iraqis. If some of them are weak and cannot do the job, then the stronger members will have them replaced.
Iraq will succeed - not because of tinkering by people in New York or Washington - but because of Iraqis in places like Baghdad and Tikrit and ar-Ramadi and Hillah want it to succeed.
It will lie with the politicians to turn that desire into policies, plans, and programs to move Iraqi society forward.
SPECIAL KUDOS to Mullings Readers:
About 17 million of you pointed via e-mail out that the title of the previous column, "Of Presidents and Kings" was a mis-quotation of a line, spoken by the Walrus, from "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax;
Of cabbages and kings."
Coo-coo-cah-choo.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, Don Rickles, Coo-Coo-Cah-Choo, a terrific Mullfoto left over from Baghdad, and a fascinating Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
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