Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Not all ideas are created equal.

In Mitt Romney's No Apology, he devotes some space to detailing how he would reorganize the Department of State. He says that he would organize diplomacy around regions of the world, with one director in charge of all diplomatic affairs for that region. He says he wants something similar to the regional combatant commands of the Department of Defense. When I first read that last summer, it didn't strike me as particularly significant.

I didn't think is was significant until I was tasked at my job to read this report from RAND, one of the best think tanks in the research world. The analysis, written in 2010, speaks of the difficulty that DoD and DoS have in coordinating their missions and objectives in a given region or country. Romney's idea is not an expensive one, but it could make for a more competent foreign policy.

Not all ideas are created equal.

Joshua Keating takes us on a trip in the way-back machine, when Gingrich excoriates the Department of State for not making everyone in the world agree with the Bush administration's decision to go into Iraq. It really shows that Gingrich fundamentally (wink) doesn't understand the purpose of diplomacy. As Keating points out, the logical conclusion of Newt's word salad is that the United States should sanction Qatar when Al Jazeera prints a bad editorial of American policy. You would think that a man who claims to have ended the Cold War would not be so clueless. Of course, the fact that he thinks he was even remotely a factor in the end of the Cold War shows how clueless and narcissistic he really is. Keating lays down a lot more ink poking at Newt's brain explosion. I encourage you to take a look.

The difference between Romney's ideas and Newt's ideas is that Romney gets his ideas from experts and policy literature. Newt's ideas flow straight out of his mouth without filter and serve the distinct purpose of impressing upon his brainwashed following that Newt is some kind of witty, ideas machine. He is an ideas machine alright, it's just that none of them are any good, which is why none of them ever make it to the clear light of actual, governing policy.

So go ahead, next time someone tells you that Newt has a lot of good ideas, ask that person to name one. It's a great way of embarrassing a Newt enthusiast.

--Update--

Newt is an idiot.


daveweigel
Newt: "I gave a speech in 2002 in which I took apart the State Department."
 
Laura Rozen
Gingrich will move US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem 2 hours after inauguration. will ask John Bolton to be Secretary of State!
 

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, Pablo. Thank you.

-Martha

Anonymous said...

Interesting post.

I know that you will hate this, but flipping through the radio stations the other day, I happened to hear Rush Limbaugh say almost exactly the same thing about Newt as you did. Something to the effect that Newt has lots of ideas which he speaks without reservation. I thought you would love to know that you and Rush agree on something. :) However, Rush seems to defend Newt's stupidity, which I know you don't. I can't defend Newt, either.

AZ

Anonymous said...

P.S. I hope I don't have to defend Newt ever!

AZ

Pablo said...

Lol. So what you are saying is that even Rush is right on occasion. Thanks, AZ, for sharing that. Lol.