Lucky

Sully Sullenberger, the hero of the day is getting well deserved kudos as a brilliant pilot. It's also true that he was lucky. If he had been only just a tiny bit unlucky, his plane would have broken apart on landing, and many or most of the passengers and crew would likely have died. If that had happened he would have been pilloried by some for not choosing to attempt to land at one of the two nearby airports, but his decision would still have been correct. He very quickly evaluated the risks and decided that the risk of a catastrophic crash that might have killed many more than just the passengers was too great.

President Obama will face several terrible challenges in his first term, and it is certain that success will require luck as well as good judgement. My guess is that at least some of his policies will fail. We can only hope that such failures, if they occur, will not cloud his judgement of how to proceed.

We have just about finished with one President who continually brags about his decision making even though nearly all his decisions were disastrous. Not only were the decisions bad, but the decision making process was textbook folly. A very ignorant and not very bright president insisted on making his decisions with a minimum of information input, ignored anything that didn't fit his stereotypes, and was effortlessly manipulated by his advisors.

Obama seems to be unusually free of those specific vices. Let's hope that his virtues serve him well.

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