James Fallows: Why You Cannot Say You 'Like' Firing People - & why you can't un-ring that bell

[thesquanderer]

40. The benefit of having a power you may actually have no desire to actually use...

...is that it gives you a strong negotiating position.

Sorry if my earlier post was not clear.

You don't have to enjoy firing people to enjoy the benefit of knowing that your employees will try to do good work to avoid being fired. So yes, you can enjoy having the authority, without relishing the idea of actually having to use it.

And a president might like the fact that his authority over terrible weapons gives him a strong negotiating position and a strong deterrent capability, even though he would hate the idea of actually dropping a bomb.

There is clearly a difference between enjoying the authority and enjoying the action, and one doesn't naturally follow from the other.

And Mitt did have a point... if you could "fire" your insurance company and easily go somewhere else, maybe they wouldn't suck as much.

Still, I don't mind seeing the other republicans rake him over the coals over it. I just like to think "we're better than that."