Courage, Vision, and Passion: Three Virtues Despised by the Washington Plutocracy

As I read through the papers early this morning on my living room couch, I saw a television ad, not for the first time, that withholds identification of its sponsor until the final seconds. You've probably seen it, too. (Download it here; it's the third listing, right-hand column.) It features three CEOs: Michael Dell of Dell Computers; Steve Ballmer of Microsoft; and Howard Schultz of Starbucks. Here, in chronological order, are their comments.

Howard Schultz: "You have to have the ability to inspire others. Success is not an entitlement; it has to be earned."

Michael Dell: "We had a great dream to be the leading computer systems company in the world. At first, my parents were pretty upset with me when I dropped out of college. But, after a while, they got over it."

Steve Ballmer: "When I first came to Microsoft, my father asked me what software was. My mother asked a more interesting question: 'why would a person ever need a computer?'"

Howard Schultz: "I am still as inspired today as I was when I first joined the company."

Michael Dell: "A leader today needs to have a distinct view of where the business is heading, as well as a tremendous passion for getting there."

Howard Schultz: "But it takes courage, it takes an entrepreneurial spirit, it takes vision."

Steve Ballmer: "As I look five, ten, fifteen years into the future, we're just scratching the surface of what's really possible."

Voice of each man: Dell, Starbucks, Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer, off camera: "Listed on NASDAQ. NASDAQ 100 companies."

The list of visionary risk-takers could be expanded easily because business, despite red tape and trial lawyers, still holds out the possibility of rewarding such behavior. Entrepreneurs who begin with a hunch, an insight, an intuition, can go on to build huge commercial successes. It's the dream of everyone who works hard at developing the knowledge base, colleagues, and know-how to turn a vision into a reality. And it takes courage, as Howard Schultz says, along with passion and a willingness to ignore bad advice, go with your gut, and plough ahead regardless of the criticism from jealous, envious naysayers who'd rather take the comfortable route to mediocrity.

Yet, the virtues lauded by these men and their peers are neither peculiar to the world of business nor applicable only to commercial ventures. Indeed, they're qualities found in leaders throughout history, and sometimes they even manifest themselves in more academic types who are determined to do the right thing, rather than build a consensus for its own sake. One such example is found in John Bolton.

I wrote Tuesday about Bolton's original sin: he has been consistently right in the face of pro-status quo bureaucrats at State and the CIA. Bolton's misfortune is that his own vision, passion, and courage have been exercised in a town that punishes, rather than rewards, success as the real world defines it. That's because the plutocrats who run official Washington are always with us, and, with the federal budget larger than ever, the permanent staffers and special interests groups who run the show have tremendous power over the direction of the country.

That doesn't mean that a plutocracy didn't exist in earlier days, when the federal government was but a shadow of its current self and Washington was, in the words of David Brinkley, a "sleepy Southern town." Pick up a copy of Witness by Whittaker Chambers if you're inclined to such naiveté.

But, with the expansion of federal power into virtually every realm of American life, the ability of the permanent plutocracy to thwart reforms within any branch of government has grown. We're seeing it today with the rejection of appointees to the federal bench who display too much, or the wrong kind of, faith. And, with the Bolton nomination, the forces of stagnation and, in a post 9/11 world, decay, have marshaled their troops to ensure that one man who spoke truth to power will not go unpunished.

So we get a series of phony charges that John Bolton isn't a sweetheart of a boss, that he had the temerity to question official Washington opinion, and that he's somehow engaged in intrigue to damage his critics. Yet if anyone's engaged in intrigue over the Bolton nomination, it's surely Colin Powell and his legions of pro-status quo friends at State and in the media who are as repulsed by a true maverick as they are by the thought that someone will upset what Jonah Goldberg calls "the nuances and subtleties of the Japanese tea ceremony that is international diplomacy." Most of all, they fear their beautiful world will be soiled by a smart, independent man who works for a different boss: the President. And so the permanent plutocracy is pulling out all the stops, and turning over all the rocks, to find enemies of John Bolton past and present.

Goldberg mentions one Lynne Finney, a witness against Bolton discovered by Barbara Boxer's staff, who claims that, over 20 years ago, Bolton (in Jonah's words):

[A]sked her to persuade U.N. functionaries to loosen the rules on marketing infant formula in the Third World. When she refused, she alleges, Bolton threw a hissy-fit, tried to fire her and, when that didn’t work, transferred her to a windowless room somewhere.

Head to Ms. Finney's website, and here's what you'll find:

A golden eagle flies free above the rainbow, cradled in Love's light. From Lynne's new book WINDOWS TO THE LIGHT Enriching Your Spirit with Haiku Meditations . . .

These pages, updated sporadically, are dedicated to each one of you. My mission is to help people overcome limiting beliefs, realize who we really are, tap into our inner power, live with passion, and discover the amazing power of our minds - and see the miracles all around us.

. . . This is a time of rapid evolution and intense transformation for us all. New discoveries in quantum physics, psychology, and spirituality are revealing ways to create wonderful new realities. It's estimated that more than 14 million people have already become enlightened or Self-realized. Some are visible but most lead ordinary lives. Each time someone reaches Self-realization, it affects the collective Mind. Things are heating up. Like popcorn, we are all popping faster and are reaching enlightenment at a rapid rate. At times, it may be challenging to keep your faith and to realize that God/Love/Truth/Beauty/ Universe/Light/ Spirit/Energy/your true Self are in control and all is well. Go inside in silence and know that it is true. All the answers you need are inside you.

Groovy, man.

Another critic of Bolton, one given to inventive renditions of reality that rival those of Ms. Finney, is Sidney Blumenthal, a mainstay of the conspiratorial left. Writing in the Guardian, Blumenthal of course attacks Bolton. More to the point, however, his article is a litany of praise for Colin Powell. And, in this current fight, that's a key point.

From the redoubt of his retirement, former secretary of state Colin Powell is beginning to exact revenge. His sterling reputation was soiled, having lost most of the important battles within the administration during the first term. While he lamented that he had been "deceived" into presenting false information before the United Nations to justify the Iraq war, he acted as the good soldier to the end, giving every sign of desiring to fade away.

But now he has re-emerged to conduct a campaign to defeat President Bush's nomination of conservative hardliner and former undersecretary of state John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN.

In seeking to prevent the bullying and duplicitous ideologue from representing the US before the international organisation, Powell is engaging in hand-to-hand combat with his successor. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's first true test has not arrived from abroad. Caught by Powell's flanking movement, she is trapped in a crisis of credibility, which she herself is deepening.

Powell's closest associate, his former deputy Richard Armitage, is orchestrating much of the action. Wavering senators are directed to call Powell, who briefs them on Bolton's demerits. Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence B Wilkerson, has surfaced to give an interview to the New York Times, declaring that Bolton would be "an abysmal ambassador".

Other former foreign-service officers have queued up to provide ever uglier details of Bolton's career as a "serial abuser" and "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy", as Carl W Ford Jr, the former director of intelligence at the state department, described him before the Senate foreign relations committee.

So there's the playbook, and the core of the argument against Bolton can be gleaned from its author, Colin Powell, the biggest single mistake George W. Bush has ever made.

More than almost any other Washington insider of the past 20 years, Powell has played the role of lackey for the permanent plutocracy with extraordinary skill. As is the want of this breed, Powell always wants things both ways: loyal soldier and diplomat doing the bidding of his boss; anguished moral conscience of those-who-know-best undermining his boss and staff loyal to the big man through careful leaks and, now that he's retired, an overt orchestrated campaign against his successor. Petulance is never pretty, but it's rarely uglier than when carried out by a former soldier.

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he opposed the first Gulf War and, loosing that battle, succeeded in saving Saddam for another day. In the Iraq War, he opposed acting against Saddam yet again and, having lost that war, hopes to destroy his own government's capacity for dealing with the a dysfunctional, corrupt U.N. Such actions win the unquestioned allegiance of the political class, for whom success is defined not by advancement of any vision, or the exercise of any passion, but by the preservation of the perquisites which they enjoy on the backs of people whose creative energies they siphon.

You'll find more on the Bolton nomination in this morning's Washington Times; in the WSJ editorial page leader; and in Max Boot's L.A. Times op-ed. Also, don't miss Victor Davis Hanson's article on the "experts" whom history has proven to be wrong-headed time after time.

Update: Peggy Noonan also has a fine column on Bolton that treats, in slightly different form, some of the problems discussed above.

Update II: Roger Bate of AEI has an article up at TCS on just the latest example of why Bolton is needed at the U.N.: "This week it was confirmed that Zimbabwe has been one of 15 countries chosen by members of the UN's Economic and Social Council in New York to serve on the UN Commission on Human Rights."