[Speed Gibson,
Tuesday October 20, 2009 at 7:33pm]
Surrounded by Incompetence
As several of us moaned during that voyage of the damned, watching the McCain campaign sink beneath us, Brack Obama had no experience whatever in running anything. And as I personally inferred and feared, he has no executive skills to even develop on the job. He's a weak person thrust in a big job, and as expected, he has surrounded himself with even weaker subordinates, lest they outshine him. Contrast that with the military leaders that he can't pick nor dominate.
But there is one skill even a beginner like Obama should be able to demonstrate - the removal of an obvious incompetent like Anita Dunn. Her public worship of Chairman Mao violated rule number one of public relations, supposedly her profession. She became the story, not the storyteller, on an unbelievable scale, in a manner where she cannot possibly feign surprise.
I think every President has makes a bad appointment or two. When President Bill Clinton saw his Secretary of Defense Les Aspin frozen at the wheel, unable to make a decision, he ceremoniously but firmly removed him. And nobody really blamed either. Senator Aspin's extensive experience with military procurement in the Congress proved of no value after all.
President Obama needs to do the same here.
But there is one skill even a beginner like Obama should be able to demonstrate - the removal of an obvious incompetent like Anita Dunn. Her public worship of Chairman Mao violated rule number one of public relations, supposedly her profession. She became the story, not the storyteller, on an unbelievable scale, in a manner where she cannot possibly feign surprise.
I think every President has makes a bad appointment or two. When President Bill Clinton saw his Secretary of Defense Les Aspin frozen at the wheel, unable to make a decision, he ceremoniously but firmly removed him. And nobody really blamed either. Senator Aspin's extensive experience with military procurement in the Congress proved of no value after all.
President Obama needs to do the same here.
That can't be the rule anymore because Glenn Beck is making a practice of targeting various officials of the Obama administration, making them the story. Firing every person Glenn attacks on his program would effectively turn over White House personnel decisions to him, something that cannot be allowed.
But both are citizens, each with exactly the same right to express their opinion, and Glenn Beck is the one with a tv program.
The Obama administration had a message to send, and Anita Dunn was the messenger chosen to carry it. And a competent messenger doesn't hide the message from those who are supposed to receive it.
I used to work for a guy like that. During our annual review, during which my performance was rated excellent and asked what my goals were for ten years later, I mistakenly answered, "I want your job," intending that my present performance would eventually get the fellow promoted, leaving a vacancy, as it should be. I was transferred out the next week. He was shielding his own incompetence by permitting only incompetents to work below him.