Friedman on Listening

nothing but praise for this lastest Friedman op-ed.

There was a headline that grabbed me in The Times on Saturday. It said, "Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq."
"Wow," I thought, "that must have been an interesting encounter." Then I read the fine print. Mr. Cheney was speaking to 200 invited guests at the conservative Heritage Foundation — and even they were not allowed to ask any questions. Great. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox. America is pushing democracy in Iraq, but our own leaders won't hold a real town hall meeting or a regular press conference.
Out of fairness, my newspaper feels obligated to run such stories. But I wish we had said to the V.P.: If you're going to give a major speech on Iraq to an audience limited to your own supporters and not allow any questions, that's not news — that's an advertisement, and you should buy an ad on the Op-Ed page.
...

Had this ingrown administration ever exposed itself to people even mildly opposed to its policies, let alone foreigners, it might have avoided some of its most egregious errors. Had it listened to its own Army chief of staff, who had served in Bosnia, it might have put more troops into Iraq, as he advocated. Had it listened to its own State Department, it might not have recklessly disbanded the Iraqi Army without having enough U.S. troops to fill the security vacuum.

Listening is also a sign of respect, and it is amazing how much people will allow you to say to them, by way of criticism, if you just bother to go listen to them first. I heard Richard Brodhead, the dean of Yale College, give some very smart advice along these lines to incoming freshmen the other day. He should have been talking to the Bush team.