Obama is a terrible boss
Kim Strassel runs down the list of evidence. Excerpt:
These days, what able-minded Democrat would want to work for a boss who asks hires to check their brains at the door and then read from the talking points? Respected economist Christina Romer came in as Mr. Obama’s first head of his Council of Economic Advisers; she left after 18 months, tired of putting out imaginary numbers in support of the stimulus. Former Marine Commandant Jim Jones lasted about the same duration as national security adviser, until he wearied of saluting the political gurus.
The experienced Bill Daley came in 2011 as the chief of staff tasked with repairing Mr. Obama’s relations with the business community. He left a year later, having been stripped of many duties and trashed by the White House to the press. The sage Leon Panetta stepped up as defense secretary in 2011; he too left after 20 months of getting his head patted. The folks who look smartest now are those who fled early, while the fleeing was still relatively good—Rahm Emanuel, Austan Goolsbee, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Vivek Kundra.
Who would want to work for a boss who micromanages everything but takes no responsibility when things don’t work out?
I doubt he micromanages, or is all that acquainted with what his subordinates are up to. What I suspect is going on is that the culture is such that everything is subordinate to considerations of electoral politics and display, and that frustrates serious policy-makers and professionals. The fish rots from the head down, but I'd wager the transmitter of the rot is Valerie Jarrett, who is known to have had disagreeable disputes with Daley at least.
ReplyDeleteThe CEA issues the Economic Report of the President, which is a gloss on available statistical data. The CEA is a small subunit of the Executive Office and does not undertake surveys itself. Supposedly, Murray Wiedenbaum resigned as CEA chair in 1982 to avoid injury to his academic reputation and Martin Feldstein suffered chronic abrasions with the political types in the Reagan White House. This is nothing new.
It's no surprise he's a rotten administrator; he'd never done it before (unless you count running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge into the ground). But the rottenness is a reflection of his priorities and the sort of people he selects here, there, and the next place, no micromanaging.
And it's not merely hacks, but dishonest people who are valued. See Douglas Shulman, Joel Koskinen to name two. See also Eric Holder and Thomas Perez, who are fanatics and scamsters.
You're probably right about all this. It's possible that micromanages is a poor word choice in an otherwise insightful article. What Obama appears to do is hire someone, then get mad when they don't do exactly what he wanted them to do, then run them out. However I'm not even sure he gets really mad usually. Just disappointed; but he's used to that. I think everybody disappoints him nowadays, except for the 60% of the electorate who didn't vote in the mid-terms. He liked them--he *heard* them.
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