Back when I was a doctoral student, I faced one of the most challenging decisions that I had to make: to figure out a dissertation committee. I got the ok from the faculty who I wanted to be my principal dissertation research adviser. But the other two?
My first thought was to work with my diverse interests--after all, shouldn't the dissertation team reflect who I was/am as a student by having faculty members who would look at the issues I wanted to study from the multiple perspectives that I am always interested in? But then better sense prevailed and, hey, trust me, I do have a PhD diploma.
One of the triggers for this better sense was a rather indirect comment that my adviser made when at one of our regular meetings he told me something like, "Sriram, it is time you graduated." That comment changed my focus on the process--reading and discussing and being an involved student .... to the product--the dissertation.
Sometimes I do think that President Obama's White House is in a situation that is not different from this doctoral student past of mine. The White House seems to be a lot into being good policymakers, by doing a lot of background work into the issues, writing papers and making presentations, .... but falling short of being focused on the product. I think this is the story of the healthcare bill, the jobs bill, the climate change bill, .... you see what I mean?
I suppose the Afghanistan approach is the one that kind of sort of is a good mix of the process and the product. Even though I am not a big fan of the escalation (I will change my mind if bin Laden and Zawahiri are apprehended at the end of it all) it does show that studious preparation and discussion plus the execution of the decision can work. But then, is it working only because it is about "war" on which there always seems to be bipartisan support?
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