23 Responses to “100 Years?”

1. Les Grossman says:

   January 29, 2009 at 10:19 am

   Hopefully, paralysis will be the result.
2. Mike Davidson says:

   January 29, 2009 at 10:28 am

   In the bad old days of the USSR the General Secretary of the Communist Party outranked the head of Government. Obama’s plan smacks of the same thing: centralise authority under the unelected ‘party’ and its ‘chief’ and downgrade the governmental bodies. Let’s hope Les is right. The arrogance of this man is simply astounding.
3. Will says:

   January 29, 2009 at 10:50 am

   Remember during the campaign when they said the Obama team has over 300 foreign policy experts and they talk to everyone?!?! This was supposed to be the greatest thing ever by the mainstream media. Anybody with a half a brain knows it would be better to have 2 or 3 decent ones who you trust rather than the collective thoughts of three hundred no nothing libs.
4. Franglo says:

   January 29, 2009 at 10:56 am

   Jennifer, do you at all see the irony in using the advice of one of the top officials in the last administration, which left office with a historically low approval rating and a depression-level crisis in the economy, multiple dysfunctional and scandal-ridden agencies, as an example of good governance that Obama should emulate?

   ???

   ???

   Why don’t you just wait a bit and see how this one works out before you interject your (very sincere, I’m sure) concern for the way they do things.
5. Inkwell says:

   January 29, 2009 at 11:03 am

   You’ve got to wonder about any post that begins “Karl Rove thinks. …” Of course, Jennifer also quoted Rove frequently during the election, and his analysis was dead wrong. (It will all hinge on Michigan, I believe was one of his analytical gems)

   Karl Rove won a couple of elections by exploiting cultural divisions (and arent we all better off for it?). But it’s hard to imagine a figure who knows less about successful governance. His policies were failures. His politicization of government agencies was illegal. He ended conservatism and Republican rule. Even President Bush ultimately demoted him.

   Happily, Rove’s executive priviledge has expred. It is likely that future interviewers of Karl Rove will be speaking to him through glass on visiting day.

   The fact that you still look to Rove for answers only shows that your time in the wilderness is just beginning. You’ve learned nothing.
6. Bob Miller says:

   January 29, 2009 at 11:11 am

   Les Grossman is onto something. The problem is: what if we have to react on the spot to a real international crisis? Which potentates in our government get mobilized and how is a quick, proper decision reached? Obama, where the buck properly stops, has been decision-averse ’til now.
7. RFM says:

   January 29, 2009 at 11:21 am

   President Obama may be many admirable things, but one thing he is not is a proven executive.

   His White House sounds more like a university faculty committee than a business organization.

   It will be interesting to see if Obama’s tendency on the campaign trail to get diverse listeners to hear exactly what they individually wanted to hear, carries over inside the White House. If so, that will be disaster: in a successful organization, there need to be clear marching orders, not ambiguity over what was said or meant. There are many choices that must be made by POTUS, “false” ones or not.
8. materialist says:

   January 29, 2009 at 11:23 am

   I once had the misfortune to have a contract with an office in Washington that was known, in that agency, as “Bobby Bureaucrat and the forty thieves” because of the army of paid consultants the man in charge kept at his elbow. “Bobby Bureaucrat” was, of course, well advised to do anything and everything at all times, with the consequence that his office alternated between total paralysis and frenetic activity, at cross-purposes, that went nowhere but caused extensive damage along the way. I thought old Bobby had long retired, with the thanks of a grateful nation (for retiring, I mean) but it appears he may have found a second career as the office manager for the Obama administration.
9. Diane says:

   January 29, 2009 at 11:44 am

   Such staff bloatage should surprise no one. Recall the hilarity over Obama’s 300 foreign policy advisors during the campaign. Why would you expect him to govern any differently than he ran, given that the campaign was such a hit with the American voter?
10. JVDeLong says:

    January 29, 2009 at 11:58 am

    PoliSci 101: Presidential Advisers
    http://convergencelaw.typepad.com/convergences/2009/01/polisci-101-presidential-advisers-.html

    Obama’s inexperience as an executive is already breeding trouble.

    For better or worse, the U.S. has drifted into a form of government called “Interest Group Liberalism,” in which various groups jostle to capture parts of the government and their power. Thus the Department of Labor goes to the unions, Commerce to business, the EPA to the enviros, Energy to the energy producers, Agriculture to the farmers, Education to the teachers, etc.

    Obviously, these interests collide, with each other and with any reasonable conception of the public good of the nation as a whole, no sensible President expects honest advice from his cabinet officers on how to reconcile these conflicts. He must rely on the White House staff for help, which means that the primary requirement for a staffer is that he or she be devoted to the President’s point of view, and not be an agent of any of the competing interests.

    Obama is violating this basic rule of presidential competence by bringing into the White House advisers on energy and the environment who are particularly zealous agents of the environmental movement, Carol Browner and John Holdren. When he asks them about the trade-offs between environmental protection and economic growth or energy production, he will not get serious advice on the very difficult uncertainties and competing values; he will get a canned speech on why he should shut down the economy. So he will have to do some things that are truly stupid or go outside of his own staff to get the relevant counter-arguments.

    This seems to be a pattern. Another staffer-designate is described as “an 18-year veteran of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), who advocated for federal legislation to give the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship,” and another as a “proven, passionate advocate for raising the incomes of middle-class families.”

    It is odd that Obama is unaware of the issue, since the basic principle has been around forever in the form of royal bodyguards. Roman emperors used Teutons; Byzantium had Vikings; the Valois kings of France had the Garde Écossaise. The Russian Preobrazhenskii regiment and The Forty-Five of Henri III were locals, but each was dependent on the ruler, without an alternative power base or allegiance.

    Any U.S. President who hopes to avoid catastrophe had better heed history’s advice. The White House staff should be his. Anyone named as “a passionate advocate” for anything should be disqualified forthwith.
11. materialist says:

    January 29, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    JVDL:

    Thanks for a perceptive comment. I would remind you, however, that in this case “Energy to the energy producers” does not apply. The new Secretary is an academic who an ideological “warmist,” and will be at home in the congenial company of Holdren and Browner.
12. Maine's Michael says:

    January 29, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    I wonder if Obama’s “300″ are anything like the Spartans’.

    I doubt it.
13. Bob Miller says:

    January 29, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    FALN and Gitmo ex-detainees as bodyguards?
14. chuck martel says:

    January 29, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Nixon had Haldeman and Erlichman, among others.