Who is the ‘decider’ in your personal relationships?

<p“It seems the president, who thought he was simply fending off pressure to dismiss Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — ‘I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best,’ he said, adding that he had no intention of letting Mr. Rumsfeld go — has unwittingly added to the lexicon of marital relations,” The New York Times reported. Apparently, it’s become a popular discussion topic — both joking and serious — among couples about who is the decider and in what areas, or whether decision making really is shared. So does this make Bush a uniter or a divider?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

10 Comments

  1. Joe Williams
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 6:45 am | Permalink

    Compromise is a great concept.

  2. J M Walker
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 6:51 am | Permalink

    Bush? the boy who got 25 out of a hundred on his exam? A decider? The guy whose dad had his military records destroyed? The guy who slammed Kerry on his war record but had to use daddy to keep himself from Viet Nam a decider? Doesn’t that take intelligence to be a decider? Opps, soory, we’re talking about Bush . . . never mind.

  3. Ed Friedemann
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 7:44 am | Permalink

    Bush: I’m a “half-er.” I’m a “halfwit” and do everything “half assed.”

    So you be the decider; half assed or half-witted?

    And I’ll throw-in “half-baked” for free.

  4. flike
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 7:56 am | Permalink

    “…Second, I showed the people of Texas that I’m a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another.”–George W. Bush, May 6, 1999

    “…I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”–George W. Bush, April 18, 2006

    I guess the Uniter/Decider decided that if you want to beat the wascally Dems then you have to be a Divider most of the time.

    In the long list of quotes that history will surely use to decide, at least in part, this guy’s legacy, these have to be 2 of the most unintentionally revealing. Put ‘em together and you see a big part of his jawdroppingly awesome shortcoming as an executive all laid our in about 50 of his very own words: incuriousity that confuses arrogance for confidence, the need for power coupled with said arrogance, the inability to admit mistakes because mistakes are never seen much less acknowledged.

    http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/05/06/bush/index.html

    http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/18/rumsfeld/

  5. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 8:59 am | Permalink

    Hubris flike. Pure hubris.

  6. CF
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 10:48 am | Permalink

    Indeed. There’s nothing deadlier than being dumb and stubborn.

    Digby had a great one the other day: Republicans like Bush learn nothing, and forget nothing.

  7. Jungle Jim
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 11:01 am | Permalink

    But you forget: This is God’s president, the guy with the hotline to Heaven.

    I’d really like to resolve that one, because if God is directing Bush then I’m wasting an awful lot of time in church.

  8. Damoon
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 11:10 am | Permalink

    Dumb and stubborn is dangerous, so is smart and greedy. Unfortunately, the first one is often surrounded by the second one.

  9. Ian Santiago
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 12:45 pm | Permalink

    It is good to know that shrub “hears voices”! I wonder who’s voice that he hears now that fat sharon is comatose?

    As for my own situaution, I can say that my little Bavarian angel is he decider for sure. :)

    Viva La raza Blanco!!

  10. CrusaderX
    Posted May 4, 2006 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

    Ha! That’s your problem Ian, you let the woman wear the pants long enough, and you’ll end up being in your underwear indefinitely.=)