WASHINGTON Suddenly, all the talk from the White House through Congress and out to the action departments is about “contingency planning.” It is so intense as to make many of us realize that our leaders and their advisers have not previously heard of that “C” word. Instead their defense against mistakes, however grave, has been to repeat as their mantra meaningless words: “It is regretted,” or “I take full responsibility,” or “I am sorry,” and very rarely, “I resign.” A “contingency” is something that can sometimes happen but is rarely, if ever, anticipated and almost never obvious. Planning for contingencies is difficult because it requires a great deal of imagination and a willingness to take risks. The failure of a government or a large company to turn its back on contingencies generally is disastrous and governed by Murphy’s Law. While it may be difficult to anticipate contingencies, some leaders can be quickly identified as more prone to this kind of disaster than others. Their characteristics are their age and position — frequently past their 40th birthday with a commanding role — and a disposition that discourages argument or discussion. Their most favored phrase: “Let’s go! I’m in charge!” Of course, there have been some very notable exceptions: Gen. George Patton, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, during his glory days as governor of California. But, once again, the decisions forced by unthought-of contingencies were made in their younger days — Patton, a tank expert in World War I; Churchill, an escaped prisoner-of-war from the Boers; and Reagan, during the campus riots of the 1960s. Normally, and it is a decision that is only partially correct, contingency planning in a government department or large corporation reflects on how to prepare for an emergency, which includes finding a location to which to transfer the phones; names and addresses of managers and colleagues; identify who will send out the bills and paychecks; how and when to restart production and answer a myriad of operational questions. As a rule, we have become so obsessed with our Democrat politically correct nanny society; an expected response is “The government will tell us what to do.” Like the people on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans who waited until they were engulfed and died. Like those who suffered disasters in preventable California brush fires. Or those who died, unnecessarily, just “following orders” in the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. We have a new secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, 64, with innovative advisers but no demonstrated success in operational contingencies. Throughout his career at the CIA, behind the desks protecting him in Langley, he was spared being shot at by hostile forces. His battles were with the Congress, most of whose members, fortunately, have been equally immune throughout their lives to shot and shell. Gates boldly told the Congress of his plans for quelling the citizens of Baghdad and adds as an apparent afterthought that if it does not work he will “quickly remove our troops from harm’s way.” No Democrat or Republican asked when, how or to where. Probably the Gates doctrine, from reading transcripts, is to withdraw U.S. troops to “safe houses or quarters,” similar to the armed villages in Vietnam. That is not a contingency plan but a repeat of face-saving measures: It didn’t work 35 years ago and won’t work in a new civil war. The month also brought us a new potential for a politician who might understand contingencies. Barack Obama, 45, the junior U.S. senator of Illinois, announced to a crowd of 1,500 gathered outside the state Capitol building in Springfield that he would like to be the Democrat flag-carrier in the 2008 presidential election race. If elected, he would be the nation’s first black president. It was a symbolic gathering. Obama reminded his supporters that, like Abraham Lincoln, his personal hero, he, too, had served seven years in the same state Senate and probably gained from his lack of national political experience. He claimed, correctly, “I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.” His style echoes that of the ranting revolutionary from the Midwest Academy and ACORN rather than that of an accomplished senator. Speaking of Iraq, Obama offered one of his specifics that really galvanized the crowd: “It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war,” he said, calling for U.S. combat troops to leave by March 2008. Creating a contingency• Perhaps. But Obama, who wrote an autobiography, “Audacity of Hope,” might already be thinking of a sequel as a contingency. Why not call it “Inadequacy of Hype.” Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.

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