Kaus on Obama
17th January 2008
Obama’s ‘I’m not an operating officer’ admission seems near-disastrous.
a) Obama makes the presidency sound like a grand, slo-mo transformation of vision into legislation. But there are crisis requiring quick, coordinated action, and the type of leader who can act effectively in a crisis is likely to be a good “operating officer” rather than a visionary;
b). Once you pass a law you have to implement it, which requires getting results out of the civil service departments. This would seem to be especially true of national health care. The president who ignores the bureaucracy and focuses on ‘vision’ is apt to be defeated by that bureaucracy.
c) Immersing yourself up to the elbows in the various departments is one way to find out the information that bureaucrats are unlikely to pass up the chain of command.
… I’m not saying Obama’s model of the presidency can’t work if he chooses the right “operating” officer to actually run his administration. I’m saying voters would be justified in preferring a president who was a good “operating officer.”