Barack Obama launched his political career with a spell of community organizing in the rough and tumble arena of Chicago politics. This entailed training consisting of two phases. First, you learn techniques for swelling the voter base by getting as many supporters as possible on the public payroll. Second, comes instruction in smash-mouth tactics for attacking opponents who resist the adopted agenda. This latter phase is vintage mafia style stuff, stopping just short of the use of “tommy guns.” Barack sprung from that training ground to get elected to Congress. His political philosophy was then, as it is now, highly liberal, to put it mildly.
Barack leapfrogged from there into the Democrat Party presidential primaries where he defeated the favored Hillary Clinton. Hillary enjoyed extremely high name recognition, but was burdened by a personality that scared large number of voters to death. With Hillary conquered, Barack had little problem beating up on a weak GOP candidate, John Mc Cain. Presto! From virtually nowhere Barack Obama became the President of the United States. Has anyone in your memory sprung from such relative obscurity to become the most powerful person in the world?
Even before his inauguration, Barack displayed the management style he would use to get the job done. He boasted to Harry Reid that he has “a gift,” apparently in reference to his eloquent manner of speechmaking. It is obvious that Barack believes he can talk any mortal (even Vladimir Putin) into anything he wishes. If we resist, he simply talks more and more until we yield. The result is an endless (and boring) palaver directed to absolutely anyone in any forum reachable by Air Force One. For nine months, an endless flow of words has been the defining quality of Obama’s management style. Can you hope to govern solely with “words?” Obama apparently thinks so.
It’s too late to do anything about it, but it becomes obvious that our presidential election process did not allow for adequate venting of Obama’s abilities to deal with such a demanding job. In fact, his ability to wordsmith was the primary reason for his success in overcoming his election opponents. Unfortunately, that dominant factor acted to obscure an examination of any other qualifications.
The bottom line? The performance results from the first nine months are not at all reassuring. Our man seems to be engaged in on-the-job training for the most important job in the world. This may be a very long four years.
