Journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell followed The Tipping Point's investigaton of how ideas behave like epidemics with Blink, a book on the ups and downs on instantaneous subconscious decision making. He today gave Guardian Unlimited readers his view on Joe Klein's characterisation of the Bush administration as the Blink presidency.
Klein's take is that Mr Bush's "wantonly decisive" mindset has created problems for members of the traditional policy establishment who take a more considered view on matters as diverse as budget deficits and support for Ariel Sharon.
The real division in George W Bush's Washington is not so much between left and right as between those who act and those who contemplate. Logic would dictate that action without long-term planning is disastrous: that you can't borrow forever, that you can't barge into someone else's region and impose your views without negative consequences.
But expertise and deliberation have never seemed more stodgy, unappealing and unconvincing than they do right now.
Gladwell wrote: "I totally agree. And we should be afraid. Very afraid."
