Tanks for the Memories

The truth is, many of Dukakis’s advisers did try to forestall the tank ride even while others were convinced the photo op was essential. They argued with each other over it, sent warnings back to headquarters, huddled in anxious meetings and even dispatched an expert fixer, all to no avail. That some tried to stop it but couldn’t is, in its own way, a very human story about simple inertia, the difficulty of changing course once a plan is set in motion. But it’s a story about accountability, too—a failure of leadership that led a candidate who was busy proclaiming his technocratic “competence” to run a myopic and incompetent campaign.