Observations of an "American Idol" Fan (4/25/05)
by Dean Hartwell
I admit it. I like to watch American Idol. The participants usually do a good job of performing their songs, but I watch the show to observe the judges. I have noticed that each of the three, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson, contribute to the show in a different way. Collectively, they provide input to problem solving the way presidential administrations should.
Cowell shoots from the hip. Sometimes his biting, sarcastic comments offend participants, fans and viewers. But much like a leader, he gets to the point and tells participants what they need to hear and not what they want to hear.
That job is left to Abdul. A former Los Angeles Laker cheerleader, she dances to most of the songs and provides a steady flow of praise to each contestant. She serves as a counterweight to Cowell, a way to soften the blow of rebuke or ridicule.
As for Jackson, he provides the “swing” vote. Typically, Cowell criticizes and Abdul praises, so Jackson must decide whether the panel as a whole favored the participant’s performance or not. He must (and does) read the situation and cast the deciding vote.
Each of the three thus plays a role for the show. We have Cowell the leader, Abdul the cheerleader and Jackson the reader. The show functions well with the audience because the judgment of every contestant’s performance balances fairly between fairly between praise and criticism.
Likewise, presidential administrations need this balance to succeed. Without it, a group of people can fail to evaluate the information before them and make poor decisions. Some call this problem “groupthink.”
Our leaders during the Viet Nam War suffered from it. President Johnson allowed an opponent of the war,
Undersecretary of State George Ball, to participate in discussions over the war as a token “devil’s advocate” but would not hear criticism from anyone else. As a leader, LBJ only wanted to hear praise about his idea to send more troops to Viet Nam and allowed no one to read the situation in criticism. Soon Johnson and the nation found itself involved in a quagmire.
President Carter ran into trouble with his plan to rescue our hostages held in Iran. His two leading advisors, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbignew Brzezinski, clashed repeatedly with one another. When Vance approached Carter and explained his opposition to the rescue attempt, there was no cheerleader around to entertain the idea not to conduct the attempt. The rescue attempt failed twenty-five years ago today, on April 25, 1980, killing eight U.S. soldiers.
In the current Administration, President Bush accepted the idea from intelligence reports that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. With a little more leadership criticism, or at least skepticism, Bush might have avoided going to war with Iraq.
Leaders, cheerleaders and readers are all needed to analyze the flow of information that an administration receives. Without any one of them, the administration misses the insight needed to reject a bad idea and support a good one.