Nuance

I use nuance every day to handle important but delicate issues. I believe that nuance is often the key to getting people to agree on issues that divide them.

But understanding of nuance is in short supply these days. As an example, I wrote a post last week saying that the "spam crisis is over". Matt got what I was saying and he blogged back that the crisis may be waning but the problem was still pretty bad. I blogged back that I agreed. Meanwhile, people were commenting on my blog saying how dare I claim that the spam problem had been solved. They failed to understand the nuance of my post. I was saying that the crisis was over, not the problem itself.

But spam isn't on my mind this morning. Presidential politics is. I am sick and tired of George Bush's lack of nuance and I am particularly sick and tired of his tendency to ignore the nuance in John Kerry's stand on Iraq.

John Kerry voted to give Bush the authorization to go to war. He did not vote to go to war. Only the President can do that. But every time Kerry says he would not have actually gone to war, Bush points to the vote, the respect frankly, that Kerry gave him two years ago. He did it again yesterday in reaction to Kerry's good and strong speech at NYU. The New York Times says:

Mr. Bush attacked his opponent's declaration that he would not have started the war, contrasting it with Mr. Kerry's Aug. 9 statement that he stood by his Senate vote to authorize the use of force.

There is nuance to Kerry's world. Lot's of it. And I like that. I am willing to take the time to parse through his positions and understand the nuance. When you are dealing with very divergent views, nuance can be a real asset.

Think about how this would play out in the business world.

Do you want to do the strategic deal with Microsoft? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its on what terms.

Do you want to buy this stock? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its at what price.

Do you want to hire that person? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its for what role?

I'll take nuance every day over strong and wrong. That's my new name for our current president and his administration.

Comments

[Brian Yamabe]

Fine, you may like his nuance. But can he actually make a decistion. Why did he give authorization if he didn't want the President to use that authority.

Your statements matched with Kerry's reality:

Do you want to do the strategic deal with Microsoft? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its are other people doing it too.

Do you want to buy this stock? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its authorizing his broker to make a good deal.

Do you want to hire that person? For Bush, its yes or no. For Kerry, its what does everyon else think?

You're right Bush has yes or no answers because he's made a decision on whether the deal with Microsoft are on good terms, if the stock price makes sense, and if the person is right for the job he is trying to fill. They may be right or wrong and you may agree or disagree.

Kerry has nuance because he doesn't know if the deal is good, what the stock price is, or what position he is trying to fill.

The Valley if full of people who were seen as strong and wrong (Jobs, Grove, et. al.). Remind me again who that great nuanced CEO was?

[jim]

Fred,
Very isnightful post. Reminds me of this quotation, from http://www.themorningnews.org/, quoted by Choire Sicha (http://www.choiresicha.com/archives/000457.html):
'Here’s a thing: For as long as I can remember, decisiveness has been a morally neutral attribute. No one has ever said, "I love my proctologist. He’s so decisive." Or, "Say what you want about the captain of the Exxon Valdez, the man never wavered." The White House wants to talk about the quality of decisiveness completely divorced from the resulting decisions. Any critical thinker would see that’s an asinine misdirection, like extolling the fresh mint taste of window cleaner to draw attention from the fact that it can’t remove an old Phish sticker from my rear windshield.'

[jackson]

This is the crux of it all. It's the difference between hearing and listening. Back in July at the Dem's convention, Kerry laid out his plan, but nobody listened. All they heard was the 'reporting for duty' crap.

[Jason Chervokas]

Brian-

You asked why Kerry would authorize the use of force if he didn't want to use it. That's simple and it was obvious and part of the debate at the time. In order to ensure that UN inspectors could have unfettered access to Iraq in an attempt to explore the WMD issue, a threat of military action had to be held over Saddam's head.

In fact that policy was working at the time of the invasion. Had inspectors been denied access then an actually invasion might have become warranted. But the diplomatic intent of the authorization of force was working. The threat had opened Iraq to inspection. Inspectors, armed w/ US intelligence, were able to find no WMDs. The Bush administration refused to believe the inspectors, believing instead that their intelligence was air tight. It now appears that the "intelligence" was primarily false information that apparently originated w/ Chalabi and his sympathizers who had an ulterior motive to provoke a US attack.

There's nothing soft, confusing, or hard to grasp about it.

[Bob Struble]

Even if I agreed with your point on the value of nuance, it's irrelevant. (For the record, I am more in line with Brian's post). The issue is what will get votes, period. There is little debate at this point that Kerry's brand of nuance has not sold with voters, and Bush's brand of decisiveness has. This may change, but I doubt it. You have to win before you can practice your nuanced positions.

To bring it back to your CEO analogy, even the most nuanced executive better have a straightforward elevator pitch, or he won't get in the door.

[Terri]

The problem is that in general, the American people don't want nuance. They want strong. They want someone to tell them what's right, what's wrong, and whether or not we should go to war. I absolutely agree that the nuance is important, but is the general population receptive to nuance? I had to perpetuate the "dumb American" stereotype, except that I fear it's true.

[jackson]

Well there you go Fred, the votes are in, and it's 3 for "might makes right' and 3 for 'think before you act'.

[Steve]

The point is that Bush mangles the English language but everyone understands what he means. Kerry speaks in clear, nuanced sentences and no one understands a thing he says or what he means.

[Hector]

This post is so dim witted it's hard to believe I'm reading it. Our enemies do not respond to or respect nuance! Try having a nuanced conversation with Kim Jong Il, Osama bin Laden, or Bashir Assad. Bwahah!

I bet you laughed at Reagan when he denounced the Evil Empire, didn't you? You probably wanted more "nuance" as did Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry. You liberals have consistently been on the wrong side of history since WWII. Start taking notes from the GOP if you ever want to win a Presidential election in the next 20 years.

[i,nayshon]

Hector -

You communicate the republican talking points so eloquently. Did you memorize the talking points or do you subscribe to a GOP email newsletter that you use to click and paste on different blogs?

Also, I don't want to be presumptuous but you seem to have left out the critical talking point of how liberals hate America.

And, finally, I don't ever recall laughing at, much less seeing, Ronald Reagan in the Star Wars movie(s).

[jackson]

What's more dim witted the post, or you for reading it? Why bother Hector, your mind's made up, isn't it. Great, go vote for the cowboy and shut up. The wrong side of history eh? I guess all that Civil Rights stuff was just crap huh? The space race was all b.s. right? Fool.

[Hector]

Jackson - of course my mind is made up, as is yours. Your faux objectivity is transparent. Yes, the D's have been on the wrong side of history -- particularly foreign policy -- for decades now. Vietnam (Kennedy got us in, Johnson drove it into the ground), Cambodia (apologizing for Pol Pot!), USSR (whining that communism is inevitable and that the USSR was here to stay and that Reagan was a "cowboy"), Afghanistan (Carter's weakness allowed this to happen, Kremlin files say so), Cuba (Kennedy the junkie botched the Bay of Pigs and nearly got us into a nuclear exchange!), strategic arms negotiations with the Soviets (Dems wanted a nuclear freeze, whereas Reagan wanted arms reductions, for starters), Gulf War I (opposed by many liberals including John Kerry), and the list goes on and on. Let's be honest - liberals are pussies on defense and would rather talk things out with thugs than wave a big stick as Roosevelt said.

And the electorate demonstrates this. You stole the election in '60, you won in '64 on the heels of a presidential assasination , you won in '76 on the heels of watergate, and you won in '92 and '96 due to Ross Perot. Al Gore got the most popular votes ever for a Democrat and lost the electoral college. You are headed to a resounding defeat in November due in large part to this continued weakness - no - idiocy. Protecting America from its enemies is job #1 for a President and until liberals like you figure this out you ought to get comfortable as the minority party for the long term.

Oh - and you might check the Republican votes for and the Democratic votes against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before you get too excited there Jackson. Look up "Dixiecrat" in the dictionary under your desk.

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