Donald Trump arrived, the way I hear this Tillerson sound bite, Trump arrives knowing what he wants to do. He doesn’t arrive unsure and he’s not gonna admit that who doesn’t know what to do because he’s not from this world. He’s there, and he has a specific agenda that everybody that elected him knows what it is: Make America Great Again.
Sadly, he hasn’t done a lot on that agenda. He hasn’t built the wall yet. We haven’t repealed and replaced Obamacare. There’s a lot of things in the Trump agenda that have not happened yet. But that’s not what Tillerson’s talking about. Tillerson’s talking about some guy comes in and says, “This is what I want to happen.” And your typical Washington bureaucrat or CEO bureaucrat will say, “Well, where’s the memo? Where’s the plan? Where’s the blueprint?”
Trump said, “There’s no blueprint. Just do it! This is what I want to happen. This is what I want.”
“Well, uh, you know, you shouldn’t do it that way.”
“I don’t care what you — just make it happen.” Trump is one of these, this is how he’s worked, “make it happen.” If he’s talking to Jared, if he’s talking to Trump Jr. or Eric or Ivanka, “This is what I want, make it happen.” That’s not how Washington works. Washington works on things not happening. The whole point of bureaucracy is to not do such that it looks like you’re getting things done. There might not be any need for you after you finish. So everything’s never done. Of course Trump’s gonna have compatibility problems with that.
[emphasis added]
Tillerson is a good guy, what he did with Venezuela was brilliant when he was running Exxon, but he came up through a corporate bureaucracy. Trump is an entrepreneur. Apple found out what happens when you hire a guy from a corporate bureaucracy to run an entrepreneurial company.
Not only that but Trump has a hostile bureaucracy trying to bring him down. I would like to know why that Chinese executive was arrested. I suspect that was the Deep State trying to derail Trump’s policy on China and crash the stock market.
I liked Tillerson. I think he was still enough of an outsider to make a positive difference, but his problem was the flip side of Trump’s strength. Trump didn’t have any allies in D.C., so he was free to tear the place up and rebuild it. Tillerson didn’t have any allies either, but he quickly became marginalized.
If it really happened, the alleged conversation between Trump and Tillerson suggesting they kill Assad and nuke Syria was undoubtedly Trump feeling out Tillerson and forcing him to stake a position. Obviously, it was another one of Trump’s negotiating tactics. Everything is a negotiation to him.
We know this because when he did bomb Syria, it was all fireworks and no lasting impact. Just a show, which is another favorite Trump trick.
Maybe someone can help with tracking down the source of a vaguely-remembered quote about Eisenhower?
This was on Eisenhower’s election to the Presidency. The substance of the quote was that Eisenhower was going to be sorely disappointed. As an Army General, Eisenhower had been used to issuing an order and having it immediately obeyed. As future President, he was going to find out that he could issue commands … but getting them implemented was a whole different matter.
It was outgoing president Harry Truman: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”
Truman was such a bitter, misanthrope. The entire country, Republicans and Democrats combined, hated him by the time his second term was ending, so it’s no wonder that he said this.
I am a fan of Truman and don’t blame him for being bitter by 1952. He did not understand that Eisenhower was more of a politician than general.
Patton or Sherman would never have gotten anything done in Washington but they knew it.
Politics was Eisenhower’s wheel house.
Truman was also probably the last honest man in Congress. His committee was the bane of all the chiselers during the war. The reason why the P 51 was not in Europe in 1942, flying escort for the Mighty Eighth was the Allison engines that were inferior but were made by GM, where Knudson came from.
Knudson did a great job but the Allison engine was crap. It was late 1943 and thousands of B17 and B 24 crew were dead before the P51 got the Rolls Royce engine.
I forgot where I read this story, so take it for what it’s worth.
Truman hated Robert Taft, who was his main nemesis in the Senate especially on foreign policy. Whenever Truman was flying west he made sure that he ate a big meal beforehand so he would have to use the toilet on the plane. As the plane flew over Ohio, Truman would direct the pilot to dump the toilet waste so it would be scattered throughout Taft’s home state.
A big Thank You to Stephen Karlson for the source of that quote about Eisenhower.
As President himself, Truman must have known what he was talking about. Maybe the difference between then & now is that, in Truman’s day, it was Congress which made things difficult — and perhaps that is the way things should be, checks & balances. Today, it is the unelected, unsupervised bureaucracy which impedes anything not popular with the cool kids who rule the Democrat Party. It is astonishing to remember that the head of the IRS refused to do unethical actions requested by President Nixon — whereas a mid-level bureaucrat in the Obama administration’s IRS pursued an arrogantly political vendetta against the Tea Party, and was allowed to retire on full taxpayer-funded pension instead of getting a well-deserved jail sentence with complete loss of all benefits.
Re Eisenhower –
Anybody who could win a war with Monty, Patton, and Charles De Gaulle on his side knew a thing or two about politics.
“Anybody who could win a war with Monty, Patton, and Charles De Gaulle on his side knew a thing or two about politics.”
I wanted to upvote this. ;)
Gruray:
here you go:
https://books.google.com/books?id=7bWbwTDwDi8C&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=truman+robert+taft+waste+disposal&source=bl&ots=B3Yei2CDIK&sig=2aNilwKZj0qzolUHX0XRv-k-CHI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjeo6jx1JbfAhVIhOAKHRzWAsIQ6AEwFXoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=truman%20robert%20taft%20waste%20disposal&f=false
Thanks Brian. That was Harry Truman.
it was Congress which made things difficult — and perhaps that is the way things should be
Considering Truman’s second term objectives included fighting a war with no intention of winning, crashing the economy with hyperinflation, nationalizing the steel industry in order to get an extra 2% raise for his union base of support, and defecating on the state of Ohio… I would say it was a good thing Congress was exercising its constitutional duties.
The Merlins were like the Spitfire, hard to manufacture. A lot of the delay was from transferring the technology, the English didn’t have the capacity to supply all of their own needs, let alone ours. The Allison engines were just fine in the P38, a different airplane that was flown differently. Of course, the 17’and 24’s weren’t going to need escorts.
I’m not buying the extradition as deep state shenanigans without evidence. It wouldn’t have happened without very high level approval, on both sides of the border. It seems that most of the Chinese 1% have contingency plans that include a quick flight to the outside if the excrement hits the fan. This sends a message that it might not be that easy. A lot of Chinese businesses are complicit in IP theft and other government backed misdeeds. A few billion dollars aren’t as much fun when you can’t cross the border without risking arrest. You won’t know you’re at risk until you’re detained going through an air port one day. If this is really “deep state”, they’ve done Trump a big favor. It sure got Xi’s attention.
It seems that most of the Chinese 1% have contingency plans that include a quick flight to the outside if the excrement hits the fan.
Back in the days of Hong Kong, a friend of mine was from a wealthy Chinese family there. He said everybody had first class airline tickets bought and paid for. They are valid for a year and each year they would turn them in for current ones.
When I was examining recruits in LA, about 15 to 20% of our Army recruits were Chinese nationals applying for an Army program that granted citizenship at the end of the enlistment.
The parents were in China. Some were college graduates and I always figured they were the family insurance policy.
Canada is filled with young Chinese establishing residence.