Monday, May 4, 2009

It depends on what the meaning of the word "yes-man" is

Richard Haass writes about the dilemma of serving in the Bush administration when one is personally opposed to its signature foreign policy initiative, the Iraq war:

This is all well and good, but in my experience, dissent tends to be more honored in the abstract than in practice. Joseph Heller captures this reality all too well in his wicked 1979 political novel "Good as Gold," in which Ralph, a presidential aide, tells a job applicant, "This President doesn't want yes-men. What we want are independent men of integrity who will agree with all our decisions after we make them."

Many aspects of the Bush administration seem to bring the question Warhol famously posed readily to mind: "Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?"

2 comments:

Meg said...

Or maybe life imitates life and art imitates art.

Unknown said...

Or maybe politics imitates hell.