> “Obama structures meetings so that they\u2019re not debates,” says one participant. \u201cThey\u2019re mini-speeches. He likes to make decisions by having his mind occupying the various positions. He likes to imagine holding the view.\u201d Says another person at the meeting, \u201cHe seems very much to want to hear from people. Even when he\u2019s made up his mind he wants to cherry-pick the best arguments to justify what he wants to do.\u201d…<\/p>\n
> \u201cThe intelligence was very abstract,\u201d says one witness. \u201cObama started asking questions about it. \u2018What happens to the people in these cities when the cities fall? When you say Qaddafi takes a town, what happens?\u2019\u201d…Obama then proceeded to call on every single person for his views, including the most junior people. \u201cWhat was a little unusual,\u201d Obama admits, \u201cis that I went to people who were not at the table. Because I am trying to get an argument that is not being made.\u201d…<\/p>\n
> His desire to hear the case raises the obvious question: Why didn\u2019t he just make it himself? \u201cIt\u2019s the Heisenberg principle,\u201d he says. \u201cMe asking the question changes the answer. And it also protects my decision-\u00admaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
[Michael Lewis: Obama\u2019s Way | Vanity Fair](http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/politics\/2012\/10\/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
> “Obama structures meetings so that they\u2019re not debates,” says one participant. \u201cThey\u2019re mini-speeches. He likes to make decisions by having his mind occupying the various positions. He likes to imagine holding the view.\u201d Says another person at the meeting, \u201cHe seems very much to want to hear from people. Even when he\u2019s made up…more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[390,374],"tags":[358],"class_list":["post-5090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decisions","category-mindfulness","tag-tagged"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wjHJ-1k6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5090"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6292,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090\/revisions\/6292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}