Hillarysworld

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July 25, 2010

Presidency By the Script

By David Ignatius

WASHINGTON -- If you want a handle on what ails the Obama administration (and who doesn't, these days), try thinking about it as the "scripted" presidency.

Barack Obama has been very good at following his mental teleprompter -- he has passed health care and much of the rest of the legislative agenda he campaigned on, as his supporters rightly keep stressing. But he has been less successful at responding to the roiling free-for-all of events that is part of governing.

For a genuine political animal, such as Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton, it's these unplanned events that make the job exciting, because they plunge the president into the maw of politics. By contrast, Obama and his advisers seem to avoid these moments whenever possible, and when the unexpected happens, as in the BP oil spill or the phony "racist" accusations against Shirley Sherrod, they often handle the media storm badly.

What accounts for this failing? Obama talked during the 2008 campaign about how he wanted to break from the politics of division. But 18 months on, I begin to wonder if it's politics itself that he doesn't like -- the messy process of wheeling and dealing, of making low-down compromises for high-minded goals.

A memorable Obama moment came when he was a young senator listening to a consummate politician, Joe Biden, ramble on as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Shoot. Me. Now," wrote Obama to one of his aides.

A man who knows Obama well speculated a few months ago that this president isn't in love with the White House. The Washington Post had run an article saying that with his dry intellect, Obama would be happier on the Supreme Court than in the Oval Office. The insider nodded his head. "That's true," he said.

This White House famously doesn't like surprises. The president gives few news conferences, and the ones he does hold are often wooden events, with little of the spontaneity and human theater that allow the country to get to know its leader. Obama calls on a pre-selected list of reporters; his answers are overlong and taxonomic. He is always smart and well prepared but rarely personal. Even as he was taking the country deeper into war in Afghanistan last December, his call to arms was bloodless.

Full article at RCP

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I recall Hillary Clinton in 2008 Primary campaigns saying how difficult it is to truly master the art of compromise and that it is not always pretty but you have to learn to work with the opposition.. and she had done that already.

Well, I especially liked the part of the article that said something about Obama not liking the WH. 

I also noted today as I was watched Candy Crawley on CNN's State of the Union this morning, that I have seen more "State of the Union" from Crawley than the incumbent occupant of the WH.  Not a good thing that he has lost the Presidential brandname speaking session!

Anyway, one thing is certain. If a candidate cannot handle unscripted interviews from any side of the news conference, that is not a candidate fit to be POTUS.  I will watch very closely for this criteria going forward.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 25th of July 2010 11:01:14 PM