Coaching Lessons: Why Didn't You Tell Me?

Making good decisions requires information. As long as you do not have so much information that you cannot make any decision at all, having more information is an essential good.

Managers acquire information by reading and studying reports... in detail, down to the last semi-colon. You may recall that Michael Burry was one of the first to see the problems with subprime mortgages, because he was one of the few who read all of the prospectuses contained in the packages the banks were selling.

No good manager relies only on prepared reports. He wants and need people who will provide him with clear, accurate, and comprehensive information. Sometimes he will receive it via email, but on other occasions he knows that he will acquire more information by talking directly with staff.

A manager cannot be everywhere, and should not try to be. Frenetic activity is disconcerting to those who witness it and should be avoided.

A manager must create an atmosphere where people will present him with what he needs to know when he needs to know it... not too much and not too little.

Every manager and every coach has had the experience of analyzing a problem based on information provided. He will draw up a plan to address the problem and present, or even begin to implement, the plan. At some point in the planning process someone will interject that the plan is not feasible because someone forgot to communicate one small, but vital, piece of information.

If you are the manager, you will be tempted to exclaim: Why didn't you tell me?

Here is a situation where it is best not to yield to temptation. The question is accusatory and will provoke a defensive response.

If the employee comes to feel defensive about his error, he might be motivated to share more information, but his anxiety might also make it more difficult for him to know what is pertinent and what is filler. If he decides he must provide you with a mountain of useless information you will not have accomplished your goal.

If you need to respond to a negligent employee, why not phrase it differently, not with a question, but a statement: I wish you had told me sooner.

This places some of the onus on the employee while not casting blame. It also offers a sliver of credit for having communicated the information: better late than never.

A recent post from the Harvard Business School blog offers a further analysis of this problem. Link here.

The post makes the salient point that if a manager's staff does not speak up, does not provide useful and vital information, then the manager must ask himself how he has created the wrong office environment.

As the authors note, it is obvious to everyone that a bullying or threatening manager will receive less accurate information. If everyone is afraid of you they will tailor their communications to forestall punishment, not to contribute to the company good.

Other managers give the impression that they are either overwhelmed by work, and thus, do not really want to be disturbed, or are perfectly happy with the status quo, thus, do not want to hear any information that would cause them to question or to change it.

Then the authors add the most salient, and probably the least noted point: namely, that many staff members do not communicate their ideas or information because they have come to believe that their managers are simply not interested in hearing it.

So, how does a manager go about convincing his staff that he wants their input? That is the question.

This is difficult because the cues we give are often very subtle indeed. A dismissive glance might persuade your assistant that you do not want to hear what he has to say. A clear focus and direct expression of interest will obviously tell him that you are happy that he has spoken up or provided you with new information.

If information comes to you via email, you have better control over your response. You should always respond graciously and with gratitude. And you should explain how helpful it is to receive the information. If the information leads to action, you would do well to keep the employee in the loop.

If your reply reads like a form letter, your employee will come away thinking that you do not care. If it reads like you have thought through his proposal or found his information useful, then he will know that you do.

It is always challenging to know how to respond when a staff member raises a difficult issue during a meeting, when he explains that something has been going wrong, or that the results you had hoped to see do not seem to be feasible.

When hearing bad news, the first thing to do is to thank the person who reported it. Then, be sure not to try to find out who is at fault, who should be blamed.

Upon hearing bad news the correct response is to shift focus to contingency plans or mid-course corrections.

All recommendations for future action should be received respectfully. That means restating the idea in slightly different words, the better to show that you are mulling it over. You must recognize the good will that went into formulating it.

You are not going to follow every suggestion that you receive, but you should, as a competent manager, make all of those who offer suggestions feel like their contribution is valued.

People rarely have a vital interest in whether or not their ideas are adapted. They do have a vital interest in whether or not they are respected.

AWOL as a Foreign Policy

Yesterday I criticized some of Tom Friedman's musings about the virtues of Chinese-style autocracy. Today, to show that it was not personal, I will offer some positive remarks about Friedman's new column. Link here.

In an interesting exercise in circumlocution Friedman takes the measure of Obama's policy toward Iran. He does not mention Obama by name, but the president's name is like the dog that didn't bark. Reading Friedman you have to conclude that he believes that the current debacle that is Iran policy derives directly from Obama's conspicuous absence.

Friedman begins by discussing the May 17 picture of the presidents of Turkey and Brazil joining hands with the president of Iran to announce a new, and worthless, deal on nuclear fuels. That these two leaders allowed themselves to be used as props to sustain a brutal dictatorship strikes Friedman as extreme ugly. As well it is.

In his words: "Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing, Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?"

The question is obviously rhetorical, but maybe it is not entirely rhetorical. If we ask who is ultimately responsible for laying the groundwork for this new alliance, the answer must be: Barack Obama. Is it not his absence that creates a place for others at the big power table? Uglier than this alliance is the foreign policy fiasco that has paved the way for it.

Obama's amateurish foreign policy stumbles have created a leadership vacuum, an every-man-for-himself situation where different leaders feel emboldened to involve themselves in alliances that they would never have formed if they believed that there was a sheriff in town or that they would have to answer for it?

After all, Obama has gone out of his way to befriend Iran. How can he criticize nations that develop the kind of friendly relations that he seems so ardently to be seeking?

Obama came into office to repudiate George Bush's axis of evil. The two states that had found themselves on that list, Iran and North Korea, understood that they were being given an opportunity to produce mischief.

The North Koreans have just committed an act of war against South Korea and Iran is moving forward on its nuclear weapons program with perfect impunity. We can easily can see that they have taken the measure of Obama and have found him wanting, to say nothing of absent.

Friedman does not exactly say this, but I do not think that I am over-interpreting his article. I think that he is making a similar point, but using a subtle rhetorical ploy.

I do not fault him for his circumlocutions because, after all, he is Tom Friedman and his article will be read by the foreign policy neophytes who are driving administration policy. Friedman is trying to influence policy by using circumlocutions and by shaming the administration. If yours is a voice heard in the corridors of power you do best not to call them out for the fools they are. That would make them defensive and would make them dig in their heels in righteous indignation.

So, if you ask yourself why Friedman offers a very harsh view of the results of our Iran policy without ever mentioning Obama, the answer should be fairly clear. He is dramatizing, rather than stating, that Obama has been AWOL on Iran.

Obama has abrogated his responsibility to provide leadership, and therefore the most conspicuous fact in the international chess game, as in Friedman's article, is the absence of Obama.

During the protests that followed the rigged Iranian election, in the time of the Green Revolution, Obama's voice, so clear and forceful in attacking the Israeli government for its settlement policy, was nowhere to be found. He made AWOL his signature policy toward Iran.

If you doubt my reading, take a look at this passage: "In my view the 'Green Revolution' is the most important self-generated democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades.... We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend, and far too much chasing a nuclear deal."

And here is Friedman closing his column: "Anyone working to delay that [i.e. Iran's going nuclear] and to foster real democracy in Iran is on the side of the angels. Anyone who enables this tyrannical regime and gives cover for its nuclear mischief will one day have to answer to the Iranian people."

If that is not an indictment of the administration policy, I don't know what is.

The Dictator-for-a-Day Club

How would you like to join the Dictator-for-a-Day Club? If you accept this offer you will joining luminaries like Woody Allen, Tom Friedman, and Andrea Mitchell. All have declared in favor of making our President Dictator for at least a day.

And no, you do not become dictator yourself. But if you join the club our presidential dictator will implement your ideas. It's better than nothing.

The Anchoress reports on the recent activities of the club here.

Why make anyone Dictator-for-a-Day? Well, Woody Allen and Tom Friedman are frustrated because our system of government is so dysfunctional. Woody wants to make Obama dictator for a few years, but Tom would be happy to make him dictator for just one day so that he could, by fiat, do all of the good things that the political system will not let him do. That means, all the good things that Tom Friedman wants him to do.

The wonderful part is that neither Tom nor Woody has the least doubt that their ideas, or Obama's policies, are anything but the best. When you are that smart, you have overcome all of those pesky little doubts that pester lesser minds.

You may have guessed it, but Tom is frustrated that Obama has not been able to implement all of the green initiatives that they have in, say, China.

He dreams of what the world would be like if only we were like China and then drops into denial mode and declares that, of course, he would never want to be China. But China can, by fiat, undertake research in green technology, and we know that this is important because Tom has been hawking green technology as the solution to all of our problems.

If you like irony, here's a really good one for you. If truth be told, newly industrialized China is one of the most polluted countries on the planet. I am not talking about carbon dioxide, recently named a pollutant by our government, but about industrial poisons, the kind that foul the atmosphere in China's greatest cities and make the air nearly unbreathable and the water corrosive.

A minor detail that, because China is a world leader in green technology.

(Did you notice that if carbon dioxide is a pollutant, then we are all serial polluters, by the mere fact of exhaling?)

Anyway, Woody and Tom have dispensed with the pretense of favoring deliberative democracy or even liberal democracy. As I and many others have noted, modern liberalism does not believe in free speech, free markets, or free trade... thus it is anything but liberal. In fact, it is a convenient disguise for their true desire, which is to have us all be ruled by philosopher-kings.

Commenting on this call to dictatorship, Ann Althouse said: "A love of autocracy often lurks beneath the liberal veneer. There's this idea that the right answers are known and the people are just too deluded and distorted to see what they are and to vote for them."

This helps to explain why liberals are constantly impugning the intelligence of everyone who disagrees with their dogmatic opinions.

Liberals are in favor of free and open debate, until they lose the debate. Then they want to do away with the debating society. They favor the marketplace of ideas until the truth it reveals does not correspond to what they believe.

Why these dreams of dictatorship now? That one is easy: because Tom and Woody and their fellow liberals have been losing the debate. It's not just our form of government that is standing in their way, but public opinion has turned decisively against them.

Imagine their frustration when they see that large majorities of the nation are cheering a recent Arizona immigration law that their friends think is an abomination.

But it is not just that they are losing the debate. More importantly, they are sore losers. They have no sense of sportsmanship. If they cannot win in deliberative debate they start wishing for a system of government where they can suspend the constitution and do exactly what they please.

Good-bye free speech; good-bye free debate; good-bye separation of powers; good-bye balance of powers... Tom and Woody are here and they know what is best for you, whether you like it or not.

Coaching Lessons: Think Like an Owner

Jack Stack was working with a not-for-profit theater group. Board meetings were devoted exclusively to judging the merits of this or that production.

No one, however, was looking at the larger picture. And once Stack did, he noticed that the company had run out of money and was not going to be able to meet payroll.

Stack reported his experience in the New York Times. Link here.

As an expert manager Stack knew that he had to broaden everyone's awareness of all aspects of the company. He needed to get them to think strategically, to stop focusing on what interested them and start working on what was best for the company.

How did he do it? By making everyone aware of an incentive. If they could not think beyond their own narrow self-interest, the theater company would cease to exist. Without sufficient revenue there would be no more shows.

Seeing the big picture, setting company strategy, involves a complex negotiation with reality.

Good managers know this well. They know that staff members who are apprised of the big picture will be more motivated to do a better job because they will have a greater understanding of how their work contributes to the larger corporate good.

An employee who merely knows that he has to crunch numbers is less effective than one who knows what those numbers represent, why they matter, and how they relate to the company's mission.

You are better coordinated if you know what the other hand is doing, if you know what other members of different departments and divisions are contributing to the larger enterprise.

Being part of something larger than yourself, being a member of a functioning team, makes you more productive and more engaged.

A manager can accomplish this by replacing sensitivity training with orientation meetings. Instead of having an outsider come in to explain grievance procedures and to make everyone defensive, why not have representatives of different parts of the company make presentations explaining what they do on the job and how it relates to what other people do.

And have senior executives explain the company's history, identify the people who are in charge, define the company's mission and policies. And it would be helpful if staff is also apprised of ways that it can share in the company's success: through stock options, ownership interests, and bonuses.

In these ways a manager will help his staff to think like owners.

If you are a staff member and want to become a manager or executive, you must also learn to think like an owner.

To advance as an executive you must show your dedication and devotion to the company, its mission, its policies and its success. You should make it your business to learn everything about the company, even when it is beyond your job description. Future managers do their best at the job they have, but their focus is on the job they want to have.

You will not be able to offer a cogent solution to a problem you have encountered on your job if you are not cognizant of the way the company works as a whole. If your proposals show that you are thinking of what is best for the company, they will be respected even if they are not adopted. If your proposals merely reflect your personal interest, they will be ignored and your chances for promotion will be compromised.

If your sole interest is keeping your job, you might be extremely assiduous at any task assigned to you, but your efforts will be circumscribed by its narrow focus. Managers will notice that you are not a team player, that you do not seem to care about the company's future.

That means that you should volunteer for extra work, and not complain about missing a trip to the beach. Someone who puts the company interest ahead of his own is there when he is needed. Dedication to the company requires that you make personal sacrifices, willingly.

If you are a staff member you should think of yourself as the second string quarterback. You roam the sidelines during the game, but you are totally focused on the game. You are complaining about how you have not gotten enough playing time. In fact, the thought does not even cross your mind.

The second string quarterback must know the game plan, must understand why this game plan was chosen, and must be able to imagine himself executing it effectively. During the course of the game he should be able to see how the plan is being modified and to know why.

He is, in short, as much a part of the team as the starting quarterback. And his best preparation for the moment when he will be in the game is being completely in the game even when he is not.

Similarly, you become a manager by thinking like a manager even before you are a manager. You are better placed to be given executive responsibilities if you demonstrate that you can think like an executive even when you are not an executive.

The Thrill is Gone: Obama and Wall Street

For the next few days it will surely be the talk of the town: John Heilemann's extended narrative of the dysfunctional relationship between President Obama and Wall Street bankers. Link here.

I doubt that it's author would even claim to be offering objective journalism, so I will not credit him with it. In fact, Heilemann is advancing a narrative that is making Wall Street the scapegoat for the failures of Obama's fiscal policies.

Heilmann seems aware of the White House strategy. He begins his article with the simple fact that after losing the Senate race in Massachusetts, the Obama team decided it had to change the message. Seeing populist rage directed toward it, it chose to try to redirect that rage toward Wall Street.

Strangely enough, after making this salient point, Heilmann proceeds to create a narrative that presents the White House line.

I have been following this development on the blog... here and here.

Story lines have their virtues and their limits. Describing the relationship between Obama and Wall Street as a romance gone bad makes sense. I have used it myself. Everyone can understand it from personal experience.

But you can also describe it as an illusion that hits reality.

Realities are often more complex, more intricate, and more opaque than stories. Most people have a lot better idea of why a love affair goes sour than they do of why the financial system nearly melted down in 2008. Since precious few people understand the financial system it is very easy to cast blame wherever you like and it is extremely difficult for bankers to defend their actions.

Thus, they are easy targets.

Not only for the administration, but also for John Heilmann. Begin with his title: "Obama Is From Mars; Wall Street Is From Venus: Psychoanalyzing one of America's most dysfunctional relationships."

On the one side you have the manly Obama, the man in charge, the incarnation of the god of war, fighting the good fight against economic oblivion. On the other side you have a bunch of hysterical, effeminate Wall Street whiners and carpers who are mostly interested in their mega-bonuses. And the themes developed in the article bear this out: Obama is cool, clear-headed, making decisions based on what is best for the country; Wall Street bankers are angry, intemperate, self-interested, greedy crybabies.

So you have an idealized version of Obama contrasted with a derogatory caricature of Wall Street bankers. On top of it, Heilmann also demeans Venus, who is anything but the way he describes the bankers.

In Heilmann's narrative Wall Street bankers caused the crisis and Obama has bailed them out. Not only that but he rescued the world economy. In his words: "He and his team could credibly claim to have saved the world economy from falling off a cliff."

Of course, this is an idealization, the kind that sees no fault, the kind that accompanies true love. As with most intemperate expressions of love, it obfuscates reality.

In the interest of advancing the narrative Heilmann cleverly ignores the role that Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke played in rescuing the financial system and stopping it from falling off of a cliff. In much the same way Obama himself likes to talk about the great progress that's being made in Iraq, as he did Saturday at West Point, while conveniently failing to give any credit to his predecessor.

Surely, a substantial number of Wall Street bankers were seduced by Obama. They fell for the idealized image of the savior, the agent of change, the man who would rescue them and the world. By now they seem to have recognized that they were duped by a mirage; the candidate they supported is not the president who is governing.

They were simply defrauded. For that they are right to feel anger. When you have been the victim of a massive fraud, you will, once you discover it, feel considerable anger.

The same might well be true of larger public that voted for Obama and that now feels deceived, defrauded, and, consequently, enraged.

Despite what the media suggest, there are times when it's right to feel anger. There are times when your emotions are appropriate and suited to the situation.

Whatever Heilmann means when he says that he is psychoanalyzing a dysfunctional relationship, he is implying that there is something wrong with Wall Street's anger against Obama. He is implying that they are transferring the unresolved anger issues they have with someone else to the innocent savior president.

I would not preclude the fact that many people, from Wall Street and Main Street, feel some measure of anger at themselves for having been duped. Clearly, they no longer wish to leave any ambiguity about their feelings, and about their willingness to vouch for Obama.

The real question is: how did these very savvy bankers get tricked into vouching for Barack Obama.

As Heilmann reports, the bankers who first met Obama in late 2006 were underwhelmed. But they eventually came around, seeing him as someone with: "brains, composure, bi-partisan instincts, an aversion to class-based conflict."

When it came down to a choice between the seemingly rational Obama and the seemingly overwrought John McCain, they were happy to cast their votes for Obama.

For the general public the information about Obama's past associations, the company he kept, should have sufficed to persuade them that he was anything buy bipartisan and averse to class-based conflict.

Wall Street bankers probably made their decisions based on personal impressions. They are sufficiently important to win real face time with the candidate; they formed an impression of a live human being; they did not take their cues from Sean Hannity.

You might say that they would have done well to follow their first, somewhat negative impression of Obama. If not, they could have gotten a hint from the fact, as Heilmann reports, that the first meeting between Obama and Wall Street took place in an office that belonged to George Soros.

Had they recognized the hand and the influence of a hyper-partisan purveyor of political extremism they might have saved themselves the indignity of having to walk back from their role in helping Barack Obama become president of the United States.

Richard Russell Says Sell Everything

Two weeks ago I posted about the great stock market debate. Should you sell the rallies or buy the dips? Link here.

I quoted two of the investment world's two most pessimistic prognosticators, David Rosenberg of the Toronto based firm, Gluskin Sheff, and Richard Russell, of the Dow Theory Letters. As I mentioned you can receive Rosenberg's eletters by signing up. Russell's service is strictly by subscription. Link here.

Since that post Russell has turned darkly bearish. He feels that the stock market has begun the second leg of the secular bear market that started in 2007-8. And he believes that the consequences for America will be dire. Link here. As the Barrister posts at Maggie's Farm: Yikes. Link here.

Truth be told, however, Russell did not say to sell everything. He said to buy gold.

Russell's views have now been widely reported. Aside from the linked article, they also made Barrons this week.

As it happens, when it comes to identifying long term shifts in the market Russell has an excellent track record.

Keep in mind that when one person's views become widely known they influence sentiment. And contrary sentiment causes the market to move in the opposite direction.

Meaning: if too many people take Russell seriously and become pessimistic, this will contribute to negative sentiment and will drive the market higher, in the short to intermediate term. If too many people decide that Russell is just an old crank, then... watch out below!

If I had to bet the ranch I would say that Russell is more likely to be right than wrong, but that this does not mean that his outlook will come to pass tomorrow morning. But if the market is headed down to the March 2009 low, around 6540, or even lower, then selling today is not such a bad idea.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Misspeakings

I was about to begin this post with the phrase: Right thinking people.... But then a warning light went off. It told me, in no uncertain terms, that in the interest of accuracy, I would have to start:

Left thinking people want to know, need to know, and would love to know how they are going to defend Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal from his serial lies about his military record.

As you know, the information did not come down to us from the National Enquirer or Fox News. If it had, left thinking people would know that they could simply attack the messenger. No, the news came from the New York Times, and left thinking people cannot reasonably discredit the Times.

According to the Times, Blumenthal lied, and he lied over and over again, when he stated that he served in the Marines in Vietnam.

As fact would have it, Blumenthal served in the Marine Reserves and never went to Vietnam. He only joined the Reserves after he ran out of deferments and pulled a high number in the draft lottery.

As soon as the facts became public knowledge Blumenthal decided to get out in front of them, to fight back, to denounce those who would impugn his character because he told a bunch of lies.

So, Blumenthal stood up, surrounded by a group of veterans, and took full responsibility... for misspeaking.

Why would you need to make veterans into stage props, as though they have your back, when you are taking responsibility?

Worse yet, as several commentators have noticed, you do not take responsibility for lying by declaring that you did not really lie.

By refusing to admit his lie, Blumenthal compounded his lie. Misspeaking is nothing more than a weasel word: a misleading word that tends to obscure a fact.

Besides, taking responsibility means paying a price, sacrificing something, doing penance, being contrite. Blumenthal sacrificed nothing and was anything but contrite. He was aggressive and defensive. And he happily accepted his party's nomination as candidate for the Senate from Connecticut.

This should not surprise anyone. A party that enjoyed its greatest recent success behind the presidential leadership of a draft dodger is not going to turn all squeamish about a lack of military service.

A party that rallied to defend a man whom Sen. Bob Kerrey once called: "an unusually good liar" is far more beholden to power than to truth.

Still and all, left thinking people have a bit of a problem with Richard Blumenthal. How are they going to defend him at cocktail parties? How will they rationalize voting for him at the next coffee klatch?

Left thinking people need ammunition. They need something to defend a known liar who does not have enough honor to man up to his lies.

Now, Maureen Dowd has come riding to the rescue. She has provided a finely wrought set of talking points for your next conversation about Richard Blumenthal. Now you can explain why it is right and good that he is running for the Senate and why you are going to send him the maximum contribution. Link here.

According to Dowd, Blumenthal was not really lying. He was indulging in wishful thinking. Aside from that, he is not a Republican, which would, ipso facto, make him an abominable miscreant, and neither his nor Joe Biden's nor Hillary Clinton's lies rise to the level of Dick Cheney's lies.

Dowd does not use this word, but for her it all boils down to Blumenthal's truthiness. Which is another way of saying that gut feelings trump mere facts.

Blumenthal wasn't really lying; he was expressing his feelings. And how can our therapy-addled culture begrudge him that?

Dowd seems to believe that Blumenthal wanted so fervently to have served in Vietnam that he mistook his wishes for facts. Besides fighting in a war looks better on your resume than the job of organizing a Toys for Tots campaign.

As we know, Blumenthal had every opportunity to fight in Vietnam. He was at great pains to avoid such service. If he now wishes he had fought, does that mean that he wants to spruce up his resume or that he regrets not having had the opportunity to defend liberty abroad?

Given the fact that Democrats are often considered to be weak on national defense, did Blumenthal simply want to provide evidence to counter an inevitable accusation?

If so he would not have been the first. To counter the charge of weakness he tried in his news conference to project strength by expressing outrage. As I said, surrounding yourself with a platoon of Marines does not bespeak strength; it shows weakness.

Dowd understands clearly that members of a party that owes its current success to its anti-war crusade can easily be taxed with weakness. She is suggesting that the real fault does not lie with Blumenthal but with the rest of us, because we require a higher measure of patriotism from Democrats, even from the war hero John Kerry.

Neither Dowd nor any serious left thinking person reminds us of the slanderous lies that war hero Kerry pronounced against the American military in the public forum of a Congressional hearing.

The charge against the Democratic party was not invented out of whole white cloth. One might cite the dozens of votes in which Congressional Democrats voted to defund the Iraq war and to redeploy the soldiers to Okinawa. If you did not know that these votes were shameless political expediency-- the Democrats were most opposed to the war because Republicans were running it-- you might think that Democrats were hell bent on surrender.

Finally, because Dowd is Dowd, the article closes with the one talking point that you must keep on hand when next you want to defend Richard Blumenthal. That is: Bush lied!

Dowd does not exactly use that word; she says that Bush and Cheney engaged in "vile exaggeration" to get us into war.

But, who's lying now? The calumny about Bush lying us into war has been repeated so often-- a favorite tactic of the propagandist-- that everyone takes it to be true.

Let's review the point. For it to be true George Bush would have had to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Then he would have had to falsify the information deliberately in order to entice us into a war.

But if Bush know that there were no WMDs, then he would have known more than all of the intelligence services that had looked into the matter. Is Dowd sure that she wants to grant George Bush such superior intelligence?

Of course, Congress voted in favor of the war. Many Democrats supported the war. Many of them are on the record denouncing Iraq for its WMD program. All of them had access to the same intelligence that the executive branch used to make its decision.

If you are a Democrat who voted for the war, and you now want to abrogate your responsibility, what better way would there be than to declare that you had been lied to. In the ethical world of taking responsibility, Bush lied is a disgraceful cop out.

The problem is not merely that Richard Blumenthal lied, and that he cannot bring himself to take responsibility for his lie. The problem is not even that Blumenthal, like many other Democrats, tries to counter the notion that he is weak on national defense by adopting a pugilistic posture. The greater problem is that Congressional Democrats who voted to authorize the Iraq War fell back on "Bush lied" as a way to deny any responsibility for it when it wasn't going well.

Now that it is going well, that great exemplar of truthiness, Joe Biden, claimed that credit was due the Obama administration.

Be that as it may, in this morning's Washington Post Kathleen Parker wrote a wonderful column about the Blumenthal kerfuffle that truly shames Maureen Dowd. Parker does not provide talking points for left thinking folks, but her words show well why Blumenthal is not even very good as a wanna-be warrior.

In her words: "Blumenthal ... did not have the right to build personal equity on the borrowed suffering of others. Had he gone to Vietnam, as he apparently thinks he should have, he would have learned this: Real heroes never brag, and real Marines don't lie."