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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (185863)	3/31/2004 1:16:46 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578133

This concept of public opinion is foreign to you all as evidenced by your posts and the behavior of this administration. It isn't foreign; it is just recognized as the annoyance it is. Public opinion is fickle and thus must play no role in the sensible administration of foreign policy. That is not to say that a sitting president can allow himself to be attacked relentlessly with lies and deceit and do nothing about it. But when it comes to policy decisions, you really don't want a leader who can be swayed by public opinion -- at least sensible people don't. This was the problem with the Clinton administration. And the Carter administration. And LBJ. They were not able to control their worry about public opinion, and the result was numerous major foreign policy blunders, and inconstent policy, and these blunders haunt us until this day. It is important to note that in the Federalist Papers there was expressed great concern over the fickleness of public opinion. The authors were well aware that the temptation to be swayed by public opinion must be avoided. I would also refer you to JFK's book, Profiles in Courage, which deals with this subject. True leadership means being able to face adverse public opinion and do the right thing in spite of it. Bush does it, and no Democrat president since JFK has.