Rating the President after his probationary period


Pulling out my Corporate Clone hat one more time
Since the election, I've been watching Obama and drawing certain conclusions.

Obama is not sure of himself, either as a manager or an American symbol.
This was pretty evident from the start with the multiple American flags and the business with the "Office of the President-Elect." Time after time, Obama has tried to replace the existing symbol-set with one that he defines and controls. More than once, he's dropped one new symbol-set for another just so the "context" changes.

The fact is that the American President is iconic by the nature of the office and has been since the very first. George Washington. Andrew Jackson. Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Ronald Reagan. Even Bill Clinton. It takes a lot to screw that up. Herbert Hoover did. Gerald Ford did. Jimmy Carter did. Bush the first did.

Arguably, the U.S. Civil War and it's aftermath shaped American human rights more than any other events. Drawing on that AND the various civil rights movements should have made the first black President an amazing symbol in and of himself. He would have been too, if he hadn't pushed for "racial advantages" at every opportunity.

You have rights because you are human, period. Not because you are black, white, spotted, striped, straight, gay, bisexual, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, man, woman, child, or any other category. There are human rights, there are no other rights.

Watch Obama. It's not enough that he's President, he has to redefine it. That speaks to insecurity.


The numbers don't match
Bill Clinton was famous for fudging. As far as I can tell, Obama doesn't bother fudging, he just throws out proclamations and expects them to become facts because he, President Obama, said so.

That's a big part of the reason I call him the Imperious Leader.


The color of his language
Here's one I hesitate even to bring up, which of course is what Team Obama wants.

During the 70's and 80's as part of the affirmative action movement, there were people promoted because of skin color without reference to their skills. Sometimes this meant that they were awarded degrees. Sometimes it meant that they were given figurehead positions.

The "job" was only to be highly visible.

In the normal give and take of the politics that make up almost any group, skin color is a poor match for ability. Dealing with people on their own terms is a sign of an adult. But if you never had to work for it, if you never had to compromise, if you never had to deal with people who disagreed because "race" trumped practical productivity, well then, of course you can't tolerate dissent.

Notice that nearly every time someone questions Obama's policies, it turns into a "racial" question to crush any opposition.

What's worse, Obama picks "minorities" and "compassion" over equality.

Roughly speaking, all other things being equal, he'll trash the "white" guy just because he's "white."

He's perpetuating racism.


Obama can't prioritize
He'll seize any domestic issue he thinks he can capitalize on even if he doesn't have all the facts. It doesn't matter if it's someone losing the home they couldn't afford in the first place, or putting one union in front of a state pension fund, or stepping into a minor arrest and giving it national headlines.

Any manager worth his salt knows that he has to choose his words with care, especially when he will be quoted. Obama seems to flub two or three times a week.


My grade for Obama so far is D minus. And that is before we get into things like 35 domestic policy czars, destabilizing the currency, trashing the free market, or overturning the rule of law.

What's yours?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - July 27, 2009 at 01:44 PM  Tag


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