Andrew Malcolm in the LATimes h notes for the benefit of his audience…
…exactly what all of us were telling the nation two years ago; that legislators’ experience is lousy preparation for the Presidency:
American voters have taken many zigs and zags over the years when choosing their country’s chief executive.
But one of the amazing consistencies is: They prefer chief executives in the executive office. Five of the last six presidents have been executives — four governors and one sitting vice president.
The only exception is the current incumbent, Barack Obama, who as his bipartisan critics tried to point out in 2007-08, had never even run a candy store, let alone a country.
Huh. Do tell, L. A. freaking Times? Do you finally think so?
He was a law lecturer
…which was put out there as a key qualification. “Constitutional Law is great background for a president!”, they say. To which I, and a growing plurality of the American people, respond the President doesn’t need to litigate the constitution; he just needs to follow it. The President needs to know the Constitution exactly as well as a fairly competent policeman to do his job.
a state senator and, briefly, a U.S. senator.
And it looks like the American people are finally starting to catch up with the GOP:
Overall, a new Rasmussen Reports poll indicated Wednesday, only 42% of Americans currently approve of Obama’s job, while 57% disapprove. Or compare Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 66% state approval for his hands-on spill work vs 60% disapproval for the presidential visits, all four of them now.
Jindal is a great comparison of the difference between a real executive – someone on whose desk the buck stops, someone who makes decisions and gets things done – and a fake one like Obama, who is seemingly more into
Fact is, the two main political parties didn’t give American voters a….
… choice in 2008, nominating legislators for three of the tickets’ four spots — Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain. The fourth — gee, her name escapes us right now — was an elected top state executive, who seemed to gather more public attention than any of the others.
Pity it was the wrong kind.
Something that’s pretty interesting is that more of the “great generals” of the Army have come from the bottom half of their class than the upper. It seems that leadership and scholarship have a limited overlap.
Obama may know scholarship, it’s frankly rather hard to tell that he knows much more than how to read a teleprompter and follow instructions. He loves bureaucracy and passing the buck — how many czars and commissions has he appointed so far?
But leadership is something he’s sorely lacking; he’s trying to defer to authority (his czars and commissions) to tell him what to do. He didn’t lead on Porkulus, he didn’t lead on health care reform, he’s not leading on carbon taxing, and he’s certainly not leading on the spill.
We’ve elected someone who’s at best a middle level manager, not an executive.
exactly what all of us were telling the nation two years ago
Sometimes I feel like the parent who warns the kid “If you get drunk you’re going to regret it in the morning”.
It’s the morning.
Not surprised at the Executive branch incompetence demonstrated by Barrack Milhouse Obama, in fact, I expected it. I’ve worked at and observed too many businesses where the glib, attractive, MBA/CPA/JD with no front line experience gets hired/promoted to head up the organization. After all the planning, theorizing and rah-rah speeches, the smart guy/gal can’t get the business moving forward when it’s time to open up the store and deliver the product. As a rule, they have no respect for the people who actually have to implement their strategic vision and are genuinely shocked when their perfect plan gets a knock-down blow whether it comes from internal (most of the time) or external forces. Barry just keeps motoring on though, totally un-self-aware because he can.
you’re going to regret it in the morning”.
It’s the morning.
It’s a whole new spin on “Morning in America”, innit?
If you don’t turn that into a post, I will.
Go for it. I’ll defer to the Master.
Seflores, it’s “Barack Hussein Blagojevich Daley Jackson Khalidi Ayers Wright Pfleger Ulyanov Obama.” Thanks!
I also beg to differ with whether Obama truly is an academic. He’s not released any of his college transcripts, and away from the teleprompter, he is generally a disaster. At least most academics can talk without TOTUS helping them out.
In other words, he’s most likely a PRETEND academic–knowing how to sip a latte and eat aragula, but without all that difficulty of knowing something.
It’s morning for the administration, too, but their solution is more “hair of the dog.” They think the reason they feel bad is because they didn’t drink enough. Soooo…more “stimulus”, more “reform”, more taxes.
Right on, Bubbasan. You’d be surprised to learn how many Obama voters think that Obama published scholarly articles on the law. He didn’t. He was what they call a ‘clinical professor’. He taught. He did not do research. He did not publish.
He also has a history of inflating his resume.
It should be obvious by now that he doesn’t know anything about economics. If a trucker pays $3k for fuel to haul a load across country instead of $2k, you haven’t created a job.
Furthermore, the marginal cost to produce a barrel of oil is small compared to the marginal cost to produce a kilowatt of ‘green energy’. This means that if the US went entirely green & imported no more oil from the ME, the Arabs would drop there price/bbl until they sold (as they do now), every barrel they take out of the ground.
This ain’t rocket science.
B-B-San – Thanks for the lesson on Barry’s middle names. This administration is so Nixonian in its approach to things – price controls, enemy lists, etc, I’ve not sure if Rahm Emanuel, The Naked Pointer, is more Haldeman or Erlichman. To Terry and your points, I’m not certain how truly educated BMO is. The guy who lives next door to me has two advanced degrees in the physical sciences and yet has the least common sense of anyone I’ve ever known. My point was more along the lines of how often people – including Boards of Directors and voters choose the charismatic guy with no line experience who sounds good over the guy who doesn’t give the best speeches, yet has time in the trenches and delivers the goods as promised (not that McCain had this, either). When Barry gives speeches, it’s always about the “process” rather than when and how he is going to deliver. It’s like we’re in his dorm room bull session and he is the most glib, so it makes him right. He doesn’t actually make anything happen, but he sounds so good. Give me an accomplished, successful governor over a blowhard Senator anyday – including Brave Sir Robin Mark Dayton – what a joke.