Every liberal talking head talks about the Bush White House as closed and secretive, self assured, etc. They talk about the lack of dissenting voices, the "free speech zones", etc. However, Barack Obama, if we look, as some of have said, at how he has managed his campaign as to how he will do in the White House, we end up with a very secretive, closed, hostile denying White House. From Jennifer Rubin:The mainstream media for some time has been searching for material to bolster Barack Obama’s flimsy résumé. After all, he lacks national security experience, has no major legislative accomplishments, and never held an executive position. Not to worry, say the liberal cheerleaders. Peter Beinart raised a typical defense:
Luckily, Obama doesn’t have to rely on his legislative résumé to prove he’s capable of running the government. He can point to something more germane: the way he’s run his campaign.
Politico presented the Obama camp argument that “Obama has run a good primary campaign, which is a sign that he will run a good general election campaign, and then a good presidency.” And indeed many outlets reported on the obvious contrast between the “happy” Obama camp and the pack of backstabbers at the Hillary Clinton camp who publicly dished dirt on one another.
Accepting for the sake of argument that a political campaign can foreshadow an administration, it is worthwhile to update some of these media evaluations to see just how effective a chief executive Obama has been.
Rubin goes on to talk about the key qualities of effective leadership. Then she holds Barry's campaign to the scrutiny of this lens:
Some of the key attributes of leadership generally, and of good presidents in particular, are the ability to tackle problems head on, not procrastinate, and certainly not engage in wishful thinking that bad news will vanish on its own. But Obama’s campaign has been an exercise in damage non-control on the issue which poses the greatest threat to his electability: his associations with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and Trinity United Church.
When he began his campaign he realized Reverend Wright might be an issue, so he not very subtly pushed Wright out of the kick-off ceremonies. But he did not prepare his campaign and develop an approach to deal with what would become the drip, drip, drip of YouTube releases and corresponding cringe-inducing headlines about his association with black liberation theology, and the hate-spewing preachers who regularly spoke at Trinity United.
In the unfolding tale of Reverend Wright, Karl Rove pointed out, “In just 62 days, Americans were treated to eight different explanations.” And that was all before Obama finally left Trinity United following Father Pfleger’s hateful attack on Hillary Clinton. Others have recounted the hopscotch of explanations: from denial that the church was controversial to defense of his continued relationship with Reverend Wright — whom he could no more “disown” than he could the black community or his own grandmother, the one he slandered, that is — to separation from Wright but defense of the church to departure from the church.
As a model of presidential managerial skill this was hardly reassuring.
But, before libs like surfer have a conniption saying, Hagee! Guilt by association! Blah de blah! Let's move to another issue:
When the Tony Rezko matter broke into national view, Obama made a brief media appearance, but quickly became peeved after a whole eight questions. When reporters probed his views on Hamas, he pleaded to be left alone so he could just eat his darn waffle. After McCain released his entire medical history, Obama provided only a skimpy one-page letter from his doctor. And, of course, Obama does not regularly do press “avails” or open media calls as his opponent John McCain does.
In short, Obama’s standard operating procedure has been one of evasion, seclusion, and unwillingness to put himself or potentially harmful information out for full inspection by the media — no matter how friendly and helpful they have been during his primary race.
Go check out the whole thing.....
