What a Surprise

When you skip the droning, Richard Cohen tells us his fundamental problem with President Obama: Obama doesn't spend enough time flattering Cohen and making him feel important.

Here is a man who is supremely gifted as an orator but dreadful as a schmoozer.

Another President Cohen likes,

But Lincoln’s other talent was talking, telling stories, sharing tales — and listening and listening and listening.

Politicians cannot ignore politics, and an ideal politician will be able to work a room as well as Clinton, write a speech as well as Lincoln, and form policy as well as... how far do I have to go back? I have sympathy for the President - I don't have Clinton's gift for glad handing, nor Lincoln's for listening to the endless droning of somebody who has access to me not by virtue of merit, but by virtue of wealth or position, and find that type of encounter to be wearying.

It's great that Cohen wants to feel important, but it's problematic that he does not appear to care about whether or not a President forms good policy as long as the President makes him feel important, returns his calls, and avoids looking bored when listening, and listening, and listening to whatever it is that Cohen wants to say.

"Would You Have Done Anything Differently"

A question frequently posed to politicians who are out of office, most notably to those who lost reelection: "Would you have done anything differently if you could do it over again?" It's not a question worthy of much attention, really, as there's no reset button - what's done is done.

But it's interesting to me how many politicians say "No".

If we're simply rewinding the tape - going back in time to a period when we had no idea what the future would hold - that's reasonable. If you don't know the consequences of your actions, odds are you would do the same thing over again. But the question implies knowledge - that you'll be making your choices with full awareness of how your decisions turned out.

As I see it, there are two appropriate responses to that question:

1. Yes, of course in retrospect I would have done things differently.

2. No. Even though I made mistakes I like the way my life has turned out.

The response that's not appropriate, even from a politician that is viewed as successful? "No, I would have done everything in exactly the same way." The "I made no mistakes, and it was my evil opponents or capricious voters who did me in" response. I'll grant, perhaps even out of office a politician can remain a bit hubristic, so some might not be answering the question truthfully. They may in fact have lots of things they would do differently, but be unwilling to publicly admit that they are imperfect. Perhaps such a person is not the most suited for public office, but at least they're capable of some degree of honesty with themselves.

But if that's their honest answer - they truly would not do things differently - it's probably for the best that they're out of office. The conceit of, "I didn't make mistakes, and all bad outcomes resulted from the actions of others," suggests a disconcerting combination of narcissism and of an external locus of responsibility. That's true even if the politician means well - even if he thought his policies were the best for the people he represented. Actually it may be worse if the politician means well because, in retrospect, it should be easy for him to identify mistakes in his approach to the issues, his opponents and his constituents that, if corrected, might have resulted in greater success for his policies.

The Age-Old Question

Does Congress act the way it does because its members are stupid, venal, or selfish?

As I see it, the problem is more institutional than individual. First, the manner in which we select and elect politicians in this country scares off many people (arguably most to nearly all) that we would most benefit from having as representatives. People who are drawn to political campaigning on a national scale - people who like the constant media attention and celebrity treatment, the parties and glad-handing, the power - are much more likely to be self-important, even narcissistic. Matt Bai writes,

Unlike our parents, who may have worked at the same firm or factory for 30 years, most of us these days fully expect to cycle through a succession of jobs during our professional lives. But a lot of lawmakers still cling to their seats at any cost to conscience or to constituency, as if it were the only job they could ever see themselves holding — even though, once they leave Congress, they can expect to field more offers and make more money than the average voter will see in a lifetime. It’s this outmoded sense of entitlement that lobbyists skillfully exploit.

I don't believe it's that most Members of Congress can't see themselves in other jobs. If they want another job they'll resign. I believe it's that they can't bear the thought of the rejection?

Consider the behavior of Joe Lieberman - who kept his job - or more topically, Eric Massa. Lashing out and snarling at the world over their psychic injuries, eager to inflict harm on anybody they perceive as having caused harm to them. Blind to the fact that responsibility for the harm they suffered lies with themselves, their own choices and their own actions.

Lobbyists not only offer resources that can help with reelection. They help politicians feel important - "Look at all these special interests who want to talk to me, who want my vote" - and as Nancy Scola observed, as part of their relationship, lobbyists can help a politician appear considerably smarter than he actually is. That doesn't mean that most politicians are stupid; in Congress, most have above average intelligence and some are way above average. But institutionally, being smarter than the next guy isn't much of a benefit. Trying to change the institution from inside? As the holder one vote? That's a recipe for frustration - and to ultimately being labeled as "ineffective". If you can rationalize accepting the status quo, perhaps even convincing yourself that it's for "the greater good", you'll likely be a lot happier and "more successful" as a member of either the House or Senate.

Paul Krugman's Word Search

Paul Krugman is looking for a word:

There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

Although it's not quite the word he's looking for, the phenomenon he's describing is narcissism. It's not that their pain is so much greater than everybody else's - it's that only their own pain has significance. You're seeing a combination of narcissistic character traits - a lack of empathy crossed with grandiosity, self-importance, and envy of others who are getting the sympathy and attention they deserve.

Arguing With Narcissists

I was reading the other day about the large number of "psychopaths" that end up at the highest levels of business - their cut-throat, take-no-prisoners tactics take them to the top of a company, the Peter Principle run amok, and once there they are poorly equipped to perform their job. This article, a similar feature I just found courtesy of Google, explores the role of psychopaths in business (and in business scandals). It also describes "another personality that's often found in the executive suite: the narcissist."

Maccoby counts Apple's Steve Jobs, General Electric's Jack Welch, Intel's Andy Grove, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher as "productive narcissists," or PNs. Narcissists are visionaries who attract hordes of followers, which can make them excel as innovators, but they're poor listeners and they can be awfully touchy about criticism. "These people don't have much empathy," Maccoby says. "When Bill Gates tells someone, 'That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,' or Steve Jobs calls someone a bozo, they're not concerned about people's feelings. They see other people as a means toward their ends. But they do have a sense of changing the world -- in their eyes, improving the world. They build their own view of what the world should be and get others recruited to their vision. Psychopaths, in contrast, are only interested in self."

The article is perhaps a bit quick with its armchair diagnoses, but leaving aside the individual examples pretty much everybody who has worked in business knows that the larger points hold.

A few years ago, I heard a prominent litigator (who did not strike me as a narcissist, although he was very comfortable with himself) define a litigator (roughly - I can't recall his exact words) as follows: "A ball of ego, suspended over a bottomless pit of insecurity." That's a decent description of the narcissist - and perhaps more entertaining than poor listeners, weak on empathy, and touchy about criticism. The narcissist's "touchiness" about criticism is a subconscious reaction to fear that the ego ball will plummet to the depths of the pit. It can be very interesting to work on a case where your opposing counsel is a full-blown narcissist - in many cases, if you recognize what you are dealing with, you can manipulate them to your advantage. They tend to be covered (figuratively, of course) with big, red, shiny buttons that just scream "PUSH ME".

In an online setting, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the person on the other end of an exchange is a narcissist, or is the narcissist's counterpart - somebody who is very insecure but hasn't developed the narcissist's armor. Where the narcissist fears having his armor pierced, the insecure person fears being judged inferior, in both cases as a result of distorted self-image. Narcissists, in my opinion, can use some deflation - sure, behind all that psychopathology, they are not really different from their insecure counterpart, but they get so much apparent enjoyment from the manner in which they mistreat people that I just can't bring myself to pity them. (You do, though, have to be careful about others... once they realize that they are out of their depths, a "debate" with a narcissist can be an ugly thing to watch. As the narcissist quickly resorts to gutter tactics, you also have to recall the adage about what can happen if you wrestle with a skunk.)