PAIN AND FINI | 2006-08-22
NOT SPAM
Incidentally I notice Buchanan's new anti immigration book is now # 1 on Amazon. At least I know Sam Francis didn't write it. Any idea who did?
Comment by Antonio Fini
MY OBSERVATION
I deeply appreciate Pain's understanding that what I say comes from REAL experience with power.
My problem with Pat is that he DID write his books.
Pat wrote this one.
Alone.
When Pat took over as White House communications officer, I recommended someone to him for his staff. He told me he was hiring NO ONE.
I supported Pat for president. But my very practical, unexciting reason for thinking that Pat would ahve made a mess of being president was precisely because he is not an executive.
Please disabuse me if I get this wrong, but my impression is that Pat has never hired ANYONE. He was the highest paid columnist in America when he quit to run for president. He is an excellent writer for the market. He has a brain for the ages.
But if you are going to be the chief EXECUTIVE, none of that is useful.
Constrat Pat with Reagan.
Reagan had been head of one of the most powerful unions in America. THEN he had spent eight years as the governor of the sixth biggest economy on earth, California. THEN he became president.
The media used to bitch endlessly about how he worked forty hours a week.
But Reagan was used to being an executive. His logic was that if you have ten thousand people working for you in the Executive Office of the President and YOU have to work more than forty hours a week, you are doing something wrong.
As Chief Executive your JOB is to be an EXECUTIVE, not to impress people with how hard you work.
People would say to me, "Reagan only works forty hours a week."
My reply was, "Look, this is a man who has a Red Phone which isn't red by him every hour of every day. He may have have to make a decision that will kill half of humanity when that phone rings."
"Now tell me," I would say, "When the President picks up that Red Phone, do you REALLY want his hand to be shaking with fatigue?"
I am biased, since my job was always top-level staff. My professional preference is that the top guys leave the fatigue to US. That's what we're for.
To answer your question, Buchanan wrote the book himself. He does everything himself. And that is one reason Buchanan cannot be a national leader.