The Shape of Days

Lorie Byrd has an amazing column on Town Hall today. And I’m not just saying this because I’ve got the biggest blog-crush on her ever. She gave me a little sneak-preview of it tonight, and it just blew me away. She articulates something I’ve been thinking about for a couple of weeks now in a way that eclipses anything I could have mustered up on the subject.

I don’t often do quotes here because I think context is important, but I’m just going to excerpt a couple of sentences to give you an idea of what Lorie’s thesis is.

One lesson learned over the past three years is that intelligence collected and interpreted by humans always contains an element of subjectivity and even what might appear a “slam dunk” can be found to be wrong.

In light of this, voters have to ask on which side of the decision-making equation they want their leaders to err in this post-9/11 world.

That says it all, doesn’t it? It is not possible to be perfect; when it comes to intelligence, it’s mind-bogglingly hard to even get close. Mistakes of fact are going to be made; intelligence is going to be misinterpreted. Sooner or later, these things will happen. The question, come election season, is whether we want our leaders to be overly timid and unwilling to commit American force when threats loom, inviting another 9/11 or worse, or whether we want them to be overly zealous and run the risk of acting decisively when it may not be absolutely necessary. The obvious answer, of course, is “neither,” but real life doesn’t work like that. It’s going to be one or the other, and we voters have to choose.

Lorie makes the point brilliantly. Go read her column, okay? It’s not very long, only about 800 words. It’ll take you five minutes. Just read it, and think about what she’s got to say.

• Azores Summit on Sunday
• It might not have been better, but it felt better, or maybe that’s just the fog of memory
• A question for the Bush supporters