Since I am old enough to personally remember the Vietnam war I am surprised how far we have strayed from the lessons of that war. As the Vietnam war wound down we promised ourselves we would only enter “good” wars we could win both militarily and politically and to not enter into “bad” wars we could not win either militarily or politically. That left a lot of wiggle room in the middle but from our Vietnam war experience the term, “limited” war, is both an oxymoron and a red flag. The first Iraq war was a good example of politicians and military leaders abiding by these lessons. We won the military war handily but had mixed results with political changes inside Iraq. The second Iraq war and the Afghanistan wars were less successful with the military and political objectives but at least we tried to win the hearts and minds of the people to a mutually beneficent cause. When we look at the proposed limited strike against Syria and the political plan to win the hearts of the Syrian people, this is a “bad” war. If this war is actually a campaign to counter a global Islamist insurgency then how do we pick a side? Do we help our terrorist friends in Al-Qaeda or Hamas? Is this another fourth generational war we are doomed to lose because our thinking is still stuck in the 1960’s? Similar to our problems trying to arbitrate Sunni-Shiite problems in Iraq, it is even less likely that the end game for this war will result in Syrian Sunni and Shiite people agreeing to a mutually beneficial political objective. Unfortunately for our politicians the American population know a “bad” war when they see one. It is ironic to hear John Kerry make the case to engage in this “bad” war. If anyone should know, Mr. Kerry should know that “bad” wars can make or dramatically shorten political careers. This is a war we need to walk away from.

I saw this on the Campaign for Liberty blog. It reminded of the legal difficulties posed by a treason charge that I pointed out in my post, Pentagon Papers Revisited. As I said in that post the Justice department could be sensing a little déjà vu with their treason case against Mr. Snowden. Here is the statement posted on Dr. Paul’s Facebook page:

My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy.

The obvious but unstated answer by most pundits is that you can fire contractors. As our experience with the IRS and State Department has shown us, firing government employees is just not done. Most of the time they are put on paid leave. If the government employee is particularly bad, you promote them to a position where they can do less harm. Hopefully they will get bored or disenchanted and seek employment elsewhere.

This Wonkblog article, No, Edward Snowden probably didn’t commit treason, got me thinking about the Pentagon Papers. The circumstances of these two events are eerily similar but I needed to refresh my memory since it occurred a long time ago. Yes, we have been down this path before. Here is the relevant part from the Pentagon Papers Wikipedia article about the  that would be pertinent to a potential Snowden treason charge.

Before publication, The New York Times sought legal advice. The paper’s regular outside counsel, Lord Day & Lord, advised against publication,^[5] but house counsel James Goodale prevailed with his argument that the press had a First Amendment right to publish information significant to the people’s understanding of their government’s policy.

President Nixon’s first reaction to the publication was that since the study embarrassed the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, not his, he should do nothing. However, Kissinger convinced the president that not opposing publication set a negative precedent for future secrets.^[5] The administration argued Ellsberg and Russo were guilty of a felony under the Espionage Act of 1917, because they had no authority to publish classified documents.^[17] After failing to persuade the Times to voluntarily cease publication on June 14,^[5] Attorney General John N. Mitchell and Nixon obtained a federal court injunction forcing the Times to cease publication after three articles.^[5] Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said:

Newspapers, as our editorial said this morning, we’re really a part of history that should have been made available, considerably longer ago. I just didn’t feel there was any breach of national security, in the sense that we were giving secrets to the enemy.^[18]

Daniel Ellsberg was eventually indicted on charges of stealing and holding secret documents. The trial ended in a mistrial. The administration was in the midst of the Watergate scandal so the charges were eventually dismissed. The Justice department could be sensing a little déjà vu with their case against Mr. Snowden.

Yesterday I read David Brooks editorial about the mediated man and his allegation that because Mr. Snowden’s life is “unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society”, Mr. Snowden sees his battle as that between  “the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state” and that he would be “more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age”. Since I had just read Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” on Sunday, I was surprised with his analysis. It is as if Mr. Brooks borrowed the idea of mediating institutions from “Common Sense” and then promptly forgot that Thomas Paine used this “common sense” to argue against the absurdities of British rule. Thomas Paine did not mince his words. He was at least as vehement about the absurdities of British rule as Mr. Snowden has been about the absurdities of blanket data gathering by the U. S. government. Here is the opening paragraph of “Common Sense”.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

“Common Sense” was popular in 1776 because common people could hold two common sense thoughts in their minds at the same time. For many of them their life was “embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world” and yet at the same time, they were very concerned about abuses by the British government. Their response surprised many of the pundits of that day since it was both measured and civil to “the gigantic and menacing state”. I guess that it is not surprising that Mr. Brooks would make the same mistake. Random acts of violence was no longer a solution for the common man. Within a short period of time this common sense argument had initiated a public debate about independence from England which resulted in the Declaration of Independence.  For today’s generation Mr. Snowden is their voice just like Mr. Ellsberg  was the voice of the Viet Nam war generation.

Here is the part of the David Brooks article I quoted.

If you live a life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society, perhaps it makes sense to see the world a certain way: Life is not embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world. Instead, it’s just the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state.

This lens makes you more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme. You’re more likely to donate to the Ron Paul for president campaign, as Snowden did….

Ever since I was in business school at the University of Houston I have been fascinated with the different management and leadership styles. While in school I learned that different groups of people responded differently to the management styles. A management style that works successfully with software developers in Silicon Valley will probably be unsuccessful with workers on the assembly line in Detroit. From Jim Peters with his book, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, to Jim Collins book, Good to Great, there has been a steady stream of authors highlighting the essential characteristics of successful organizations that transcends their particular industry. Many successful management characteristics from the private sector have been successfully transferred to the public sector. With this wealth of management knowledge, what is the Obama management style and is it successful?

The most common description for the Obama management style is “lead from behind”. I am not sure what this really means since the statement is nonsensical. I cannot think of a management style  being used in the private sector version that compares to the administration management style. What I do know is that based on the recent scandals, their management style is not only uniquely different but it is not working. The proof is how the administration reacts to a crisis. Of the many explanations I have read about the administration’s response to the Benghazi attack, we have this comment by an Obama administration official to CBS News.

We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots," said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. "It’s actually closer to us being idiots.

The administration’s choices appear to be between labeled a liar or an idiot. It is not much of a choice but the administration apparently decided that being labeled an idiot is preferable than a liar.

On Friday I had the opportunity to listen to the live testimony of outgoing acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steve Miller who said "I did not mislead Congress or the American people" to the House Ways and Means Committee. He explained the IRS actions as a simple, innocent mistake. He also mentioned several times how “truthful” he was to the Committee. At almost the same time we find out that IRS’s Lois Lerner planted a question at the ABA conference in order to leak the Inspector General’s report that raised serious questions whether the IRS deliberately mislead Congress. If Mr. Miller was being “truthful”  to Congress then why did his subordinate orchestrate this misleading response to a simple mistake?

Are the four active scandals a natural result of this administration’s management style? Are we looking at a random event in which the administration made a few simple, innocent mistakes that is best handled by being selectively “truthful” about? Is plausible deniability a plan or a coffin? We have already seen how this selective “truthfulness” easily transformed itself into a situation where being considered an idiot is preferable to being a liar.  Bad luck finds bad managers. There are probably a slew of aspiring leadership author getting ready to write the next best seller on this administration but it is safe to say that this management style plan seems to be dependent on “fooling all of the people all of the time”. The author of this quote, President Lincoln, was skeptical that this could ever be a successful political strategy. Yet the number and severity of the scandals has Americans yearning for a simpler, honest time that both President Lincoln and Truman understood. A time in which Presidents did not try to fool all of the people all of the time and President Truman proudly posed with a sign that said, “The buck stops here”. Honesty and accountability worked for many Presidents. It works for businesses and is a theme of Dave Ramsey’s best seller book, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. We can learn from the past. This new fangled management style is not working.