In his column yesterday about Sandra Day O'Connor, the great Leonard Pitts shared his notion of a "persuadable mind." For your convenience:
Contrast this, then, with our President, who views vigilant reassessment and critical thought as hand-wringing, as poor leadership, as failings of courage and conviction. He is, in my estimation, entrenched in the intellectual laziness of dogma and the comforts of blinders. His is a proudly unpersuadable mind. Global warming hasn't been proven. Saddam definitely has WMDs is a really really bad guy and must be should have been removed. Better to throw fetuses away than use them to save lives. Slam dunks all, yet all royally botched. He could not even feign acknowledging a mistake when asked; such isn't in his makeup. He nearly imploded. Jesus H., man, throw us a bone and say you should have chewed that pretzel better or something.
Reagan and Tip O'Neil opposed one another by day and drank together by night, completely defusing the political rancor of the 70s. When red-baiting Reagan met Gorbachev, he recognized an opportunity to end a half-century of Cold War on our terms, and he reversed course 180 degrees. When Clinton came into office and royally stepped in it, he sought counsel with conservatives Richard Nixon and David Gergen, who helped him pull out of the skid. Later, he came to rely on Orrin Hatch for help with judicial appointments and, most especially, Bob Dole for passing an ambitious legislative agenda (and for keeping Newt Gingrich in check). You tell me: are these presidents weaker or stronger for challenging themselves, for evolving? Me, I think this is what leadership looks like. And having the unjustifiably cocksure W. at the helm is very nearly having a leader with a crippling mental disability.
I leave you with a quote from the Hon. Clarence Thomas, who, on the subject of justices like O'Connor who grow beyond partisanship, proudly tells his clerks: "I ain't evolving."