Obama's Achilles Heel?

Rick Moran, Stacy McCain, Jimmy Bise (names link to their latest on Obama's IG ordeal) and I had a fast-paced, free-flowing discussion on Obama's growing Inspectors General problems on Rick's Blog Talk Radio program last night: available here.

A few points from my perspective. I'm wondering if we aren't seeing a pattern here driven by Obama's personality and potential short-comings as an executive.

The Chicago Way, in part, means you put your people in key positions to watch your back. Obama has also shown a particular arrogance and impatience in the way he acts. He shoots first, tends to ask questions later, and often finds himself having to walk back his statements and actions.

I'd add to that a potential strain of Jimmy Carter's disease - a guy who came to Washington without appreciation, or respect for how Washington works. This isn't a state house in Illinois where an executive can dominate and bully the legislative branch. Senators especially have their own power bases and the legislative bodies see themselves as powers unto themselves. Obama doesn't seem to be the type of executive who likes to share power, except when he totally delegates - as he does too much, on the stimulus package, for instance, where he turned it over to the House.

His style seems confused and immature, as he only focuses on the things he sees as most important to him, getting sloppy with the rest.

An additional piece of this to my way of thinking right now is that, the Democrat Party has been out of power at the Executive level for eight years. Yet, many of the powerful people within these agencies tend to be Democrats. I wonder if we aren't seeing some type of pent up frustration being released as they try and make some moves they've wished they could make for some time.

I'm not saying there aren't some real problems at the base of all this. Given how big government operates, I suspect there may well be. But I also wonder if this appearing to explode early and all at once isn't symptomatic of Obama's shortcomings as an executive that could dog him throughout his presidency in a host of areas over time.

Comments

[Rob Crawford]

Democrats are desperate to lock the electorate into voting D before the 2010 elections. There's no better way to do this than make our lives dependent on staying within the good graces of Democrat apparatchiks at the local health-care rationing boards (er, make that "Health Care Quality Assurance Boards").

[Ray]

I don't see it, the bureaucrats declared war on Bush and made it almost impossible from him to do much of anything. ie the CIA and State.

They already had the power, it looks like Barry has no control over them, because he doesn't pay any attention to what they are doing and what price he will have to pay in the future.

Rhamn's words come to mind. "Never waste a good crisis".

[Elmo]

They won!