Theres a growing number of insiders, both Democrat and Republican, theorizing as to the reasons for the failure of the Obama presidency. Some of the reasons most often given are: -the world is too difficult to manage -the President has given up -the failure is intentional. Having worked with this President, beginning with his first day in office, these reasons are oversimplifications. From my perspective, President Obama has failed for a number of reasons. I noticed from the start, that he appeared to have a genuine interest in being President, with all of its pomp and circumstance, but little interest in the actual job requirements. President Obama seemed overly concerned with delegating. Delegating allowed him to avoid or curtail the detailed briefings and issue-analysis which any successful president would have to actively engage in, in order to make informed decisions. While delegating is nothing new, this President seemed obsessed with it, in an effort to avoid the mechanics of the presidency. Secondly, although President Obama brought Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton into his administration, his decision making was overly influenced by people with few leadership or governing credentials. This led to a compounded problem for the White House. First, the President delegated the task and refused to do the homework, leaving him relatively uninformed. Second, when an executive decision was required, he would rely on inexperienced advisors who didnt have the experience, or the capacity, to understand the second and third-order effects of their decisions. Finally, the President has surrounded himself with people who either share his worldview, or are too intimidated to call him on it. Unlike President Clinton, who was deeply concerned with the political fallout from his executive decisions and brought in Dick Morris types to give the contrarian view, this President is committed to the idea that if government does it, it has to be benevolent. Its difficult, if not impossible, to argue with that premise. There is no response to this view of government, and everyone in the White House knows it. I have lost any faith that this administration will do the right thing when leadership is required. I regretfully write this because we, as a nation, will be challenged again before this President is out of office. And from many years of experience inside the 18-acre White House complex, sadly, this White House will let us down.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 01:40:56 +0000