I pride myself on being quite a contrarian and try to be bluntly fair and balanced. That means I will often find people who fully agree with me on some issue, but will then do a full 180 degree turn when my logical approach exposes some pet cause of theirs.
On more than one occasion I have admired Charlie Cook's opinions, and find myself agreeing with him a lot in his regular column at GOVEXEC.COM.
I especially loved the latest topic he wrote about, called Discounting Experience. It talks of people falling and wanting to fall for marketing and hype in selecting Presidential candidates over experienced but less hyped ones.
But his million Dollar quote was about that pseudo-candidate Rude Giuliani - whose MANY ills, flaws and skeletons Cook does not even delve into. He simply sums it with the brilliant observation that "All told, Giuliani has more baggage than a Samsonite warehouse."
I salute Charlie Cook for calling it as it is and encourage you to read his analysis at GOVEXEC.
Yes, Giuliani did a decent job of fighting white collar crime, but he was a bigot (I have written about specific examples of his bigoted actions on my site even before the advent of "blogs" e.g. 9/22/2001 and even earlier), racist (many other media sources can list examples) and champion of corrupt cronies, on which a book could be written (and would probably be another way for that bald-corrupt crony of his ex NY cop Bernie Kerik and his equally unsavory mistress, publisher Judy Regan, to make money).
Giuliani's biggest skill - besides nepotism, where he could give George W. Bush a run for (our) money - is milking his happening to be Mayor of New York on 09/11. Its about time he let go of exploiting that tragedy.
So, are people really discounting experience, as Charlie thinks in his article, and I agree, or are they going for the best candidates? What do you think?
2 comments:
THIS is apropos of Wajeeha Shahid letter, ‘Drawing lessons from India?’ (Feb
11), where in her opinion Pakistan, if not better, is not worse than India by
any means.
This is a fact that India is doing far better than many countries in the world,
let alone Pakistan, and there is no harm in learning lessons from India and
follow their path of progress, prosperity and self-reliance.
Due to the nature of my work, I have been travelling to various European
countries almost every month for the last several years.
Over the last couple of years I have seen a tremendous increase in the number of
Indian (mostly not having more than a couple of years postgraduate experience)
all over filling in engineering jobs. It is very seldom that I find any
Pakistani engineers. Most big names (including my employer) have tremendous
growth plans in India and even R&D centre of many such engineering organisations
are now operating out of Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Yes I do find Pakistanis as well — either working as taxi drivers, running
restaurants or similar jobs.
I do agree with her statement that Indians glorify their average achievement,
culture and norms. Yet again, this is also an art. If they can run advertisement
on CNN and BBC glorifying their country and labelling as ‘Incredible India’; did
someone stop Pakistan from doing the same? Why doesn’t Pakistan learn a lesson
from India and venture into something similar?
There are certainly problems in India, with respect to literacy rate, traffic
congestion and many others, but still India has other reasons to be proud of
A CONCERNED PAKISTANI
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/14/letted.htm
Why don't you read "Mushahid Mandela Hussain" by Kamran Shafi before glorifying another 'dancing boy'!
Oh! but didn't Mr. Zardari save Pakistan when on the night or two after Mohatarma Benazir Bhutto's brutal assasination when the cry " Pakistan ka jo haami ...wo harami harami!!' ( Whoever is an ally to Pakistan is a Bastard!!) when Mr.Zardari said
" DO NOT CALL PUNJABIS BAD FOR THEY SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES TO SAVE BIBI!! "
Mr. Imran Anwar , one does hope that these instances may bring some sort of a change "IN YOUR HUMBLE OPINION!!"
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