Mort Zuckerman

From Nick Paumgarten's profile in a recent New Yorker (link unavailable) comes Mort Zuckerman's impressions of Dick Cheney.

Hespeaks often of a trait that he has observed in men he admires most, such as Dick Cheney, Robert Rubin, George Shultz, and Ariel Sharon. "They share some quality which incentivizes people to give them power," Zuckerman told me. "You don't get the feeling that they're in it to accumulate power or aggrandize themselves. It's a very rare commodity, especially in politics."

That's a really odd foursome, no? Take out Cheney, and you still have a fairly odd threesome. But as far as Cheney goes, the quality he's talking about isn't particularly mysterious. It's a willingness to extort, intimidate, subvert, and lie about anybody who serves as an obstacle to his ascent to power on the coattails of far more talented people.

Comments

Taking Cheney aside for a moment, the power the others have in common is actually pretty common among those who have wielded considerable, but essentially unchallenged, high-ranking authority for an extended period of time. It is a kind of 'soft' power that doesn't deploy overt control over others, but asserts itself as self-confidence (of the non-obnoxious variety) that they know what they are talking about - and often, very often, they do - or did at one time.

Cheney has this attribute in public, but says actually crazy things that don't get challenged because of this 'power', even though after the conversation it becomes clear that you've just heard something that isn't wisdom, knowledge or truth, but just Cheney's will being imposed.

I've seen this close up with the chief executives of major corporations (not all, of course). It is magic.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR on July 26, 2007 04:10 PM

This is off topic.... but this [PDF] from the NEJM (no less!) is too good a chance for you to out-healthcare-wonk Ezra while adding fuel to todays blaze of lolcats by stealing a caption at Ross Douthat's comments section.

"I'm in ur room, wachin u die!"

The question you might ask is if this is included in some candidate's healthcare plan.

Very spooky! I hope that signal is optional if offered.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR on July 26, 2007 07:34 PM

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