Who's managing anyways?

A month before my eleventh birthday, Major League Baseball cancelled the World Series. I don't remember the specifics all that well, but I remember being crushed. Most American eleven year olds don't know what tragedy is, but that was a tragedy. Where was my October Classic? Why isn't there any baseball? Who's responsible for this? The answers were unsatisfactory then and I doubt they're much better now. The damage done to my love of baseball by the strike took around a decade to show signs of healing and I'm not sure I'm completely over it yet.

You might be wondering why I'm writing about baseball in 1994 as we get ready to dive into the 2007 season. The reason, which has nothing to do with baseball, is that the 1994 strike was my introduction to what I like to call dishonest debate.

When I was eleven, the reasons behind the strike seemed crystal clear. The players, my heroes, were greedy jerks. I was being stripped of my national pastime because of money. When I went to my friend's backyard to play baseball, I couldn't imagine that was Barry Larkin, in his prime, out at short. I was just me. I loved playing baseball anyways, but everyone wants to imagine they're in the big leagues.

The debate was cut and dried. They were being paid millions to play the game when I would do it for free. The owners told me that the greedy players were ruining the game. All of that made sense, especially to an eleven year old kid. As I grew up though, I learned to ask question and think critically. The question that kept coming back to me was "Who gets the money instead?"

Sure, the players were greedy. They make nearly unimaginable money, just look at Barry Zito. And ticket prices aren't going down. But were the owners promising to lower ticket prices or the cost of concessions? Maybe they were going to give away more free hats at the gate. Maybe, but I doubt it. The answer to the question I kept asking was "they get it." The faceless men in suits that I can't recognize. And because I can't recognize them, its hard for me to hate them the way I hated the greedy players who ruined a part of my childhood.

Now, at twenty-three, I try to apply that same lesson I was forced to learn in 1994 for any important debate. Inevitably, this brings me to questions I have surrounding the debate regarding the Iraq War.

The question that headlines this post, "Who's managing anyways?", forms the basis for my concerns. Recently, a trend towards accusation of "micromanagement" have emerged out of the White House and hawks on both sides of the aisle. And they're right. Micromanagement and nit-picking sound bad. But what's the alternative?

For most of the first four years of the war, the alternative was management by the civilian leadership at the Pentagon. As we all know, Donald Rumsfeld was heading up that department during the planning and execution of the war. This was not a war where the President went to his generals and said "okay guys we have a war to fight, let me know exactly what you need to win and we'll get it for you." It was managed at every stage, from troop levels, to negotiation of key logistics contracts (Halliburton etc) by civilian leaders (read: Bureaucrats).

Now, I'm not arguing that the Senate and House will be able to effectively execute a strategy for success in Iraq, or even successfully execute a strategy for any end to the war, but, how is that "micromanagement" any different than the early management by non-military officials. Furthermore, I would argue (regardless of what I think of the overarching goals of the war) that they did not do a good job.

I have long questioned efforts to draw parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. Of course, the lessons of history are important and the comparisons may prove to be correct. They absolutely must be given due consideration (perhaps in this case they were not), but analogy is not the sole basis for argument. Still, the last Texas president to get into a long war against insurgents was a serial micromanager (and also a Democrat for anyone keeping score for evidence of partisan bias). He was proud of the personal control he exerted over every aspect of the war. I doubt, at the time, that micromanagement was central to the debate. After all, Johnson was the Commander-in-chief.

Why didn't anyone criticize Johnson for micromanaging? Certainly today, people criticized Rumsfeld for numerous mistakes made in the execution of the Iraq War. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I heard very few Republicans (not all that many Democrats either) decrying the micromanaging style of the Defense Department until public opinion on the war turned. Will the Congress manage the war well? I don't know. But the debate is not a simple one of two alternatives. It's not micromanaging, politically greedy, Democrats (or baseball players) vs. the proper execution of the war (the integrity of the game). The faceless men in suits are still around and no one can guarantee me that they are only acting in the fans' best interests.

Twelve years ago, dishonest debate and greed led me to hate people, though flawed and human, who were my heroes. I doubt I'll ever get back that feeling of pure enjoyment of baseball for baseball's sake. But maybe I still have hope for honest debate in America.