Obama's Decision Cycle: Not OODA, But PIDDLE

Very good post from Big Lizards, posted at Hot Air.

I believe at first mere ignorance was exactly the problem: The first time the ongoing, fluid situation in Honduras was explained to Obama, I suspect that all he heard was, “Wugga-wugga liberal wigga wagga union supporter woggle boggle ousted by the military roggle doggle coup d’état.” He chose to stitch this muddle together into a narrative that reads, “The liberal, democratically elected President of Honduras was overthrown by a military junta.”

Alas, Obama is probably the most impulsive man ever to sit in the big chair in la Casa Blanca; he appears allergic to debate, discussion, deliberation, contemplation, thinking things through, weighing consequences, examining the pros and cons, hearing from all sides before making a decision — and of course retrospection.

By now, of course, he knows full well what really happened; but it seems he simply cannot bring himself to admit that he misunderstood so egregiously in the first five minutes — which, coincidentally, was when he committed himself to supporting Zelaya, come what may; see our earlier Big Lizards post “Old Shoes and Barackends.”

The military has a term they use for the decision-making process; they call it the OODA loop, for “Observe, Orient, Decide and Act.” But the Obamacle appears to have found a different route to decision making.

He Partially listens to a random aide, acts on his first Impulse, angrily and bitterly Defends whatever snap-judgment action he took, Doubles-down on that first impulse, Laughs off any subsequent, game-changing information… then furiously Echos the pronunciamentos of any allies he might have gathered on the issue, no matter who they are — or whether their own interests align with or are diametrically opposed to America’s.

We can call this the Obamic PIDDLE loop, which generally morphs quite rapidly into an infinite regress.

People said that if I voted for George W. Bush, I'd get a president who was
intellectually incurious, ideologically inflexible, stubbornly unwilling to admit mistakes, recklessly willing to gamble the interests of the nation in order to protect his own ego -- and they were right!

They were just off by eight years.

posted by Ace at 01:07 PM

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