We now have the Obama Principle

[tonyz]

The failure of leadership out of the WH is becoming monumental.

Welch Hits Finger-Pointer In Chief

Could the president cut it at GE?

IBD
04/13/12

http://news.investors.com/article/60...ncy.htm?p=full

Leadership: A business icon has ripped the administration's "divide and conquer" strategy, the president's refusal to take responsibility for his policies and for an enemies list that would make a disgraced ex-president proud.

We now have the Obama Principle. It's like the Peter Principle, in which people rise to the level of their incompetence, except as redefined by this administration you refuse to recognize your incompetence and constantly blame others when things go wrong.

Jack Welch, renowned former CEO of General Electric before it became the nontaxpaying sock puppet for the administration's green energy push, has penned an Op-Ed article for Reuters in which he says Obama's "divide-and-conquer" re-election strategy is unworthy of a great leader and chides the president for blaming others for our economic woes.

"Over the past three years," Welch wrote last Wednesday, "Obama has taken a sort of divide-and-conquer approach, amassing a list of enemies that would make Richard Nixon proud — bankers, health care insurance providers, oil companies, wealthy taxpayers, Congress and, most recently, the Supreme Court.

"Gas prices are the fault of oil speculators. The failure of solar power companies is the fault of unfair Chinese competition. The bad economy is one of the many things he inherited, as is the deficit. Operation Fast and Furious was a program begun under the Bush administration that he knew nothing about. The deficit is skyrocketing because the rich aren't paying their 'fair share.'"

On CNBC's "The Kudlow Report" the next day, Welch elaborated: "It was the insurance executives in health care. It was the bankers in the collapse. It was the oil companies as oil prices go up. It was Congress if things didn't go the way he wanted. And recently it's been the Supreme Court."

Indeed, of all the trial-balloon campaign slogans that President Obama has and will be trotting out, "the buck stops here" will not be one of them.

The slogans have ranged from "we can't wait," a slogan that blames a Congress that for two years was a wholly owned subsidiary of his own party, to saying he wanted to build an "America that can last." Which sums up his statement that the system of free-market capitalism, democracy and respect for the Constitution — a system that raised a colonial backwater to the greatest economic and military superpower in history — never worked.

While Obama says he wants an "America that can last," we long for a president who can govern, who sits in the Oval Office in this time of crisis instead of jet-setting from one fundraiser to another. Ronald Reagan worked with Tip O'Neill. Bill Clinton worked with Newt Gingrich. Obama couldn't work with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to produce a budget as deficits soared.

On "The Kudlow Report," Welch argued that in running their companies "great leaders are interested in coalescing." "You don't have one division pitted against the other," he said. "You try to get the whole company to pull together."

The goal of such companies, of course, is to turn profits and provide good returns to investors — concepts foreign to a president more interested in redistributing wealth than creating it. When Obama's creeping socialism and industrial policy of picking winners and losers fails, he seeks scapegoats rather than solutions.

President Obama is the Steve Urkel of presidents, the bumbling sitcom character who, when his ill-conceived plans and blundering actions caused disaster, would look around plaintively and asked, "Did I do that?" At least Urkel knew he had nobody to blame but himself.

Not Obama.

[tonyz]

Although the linked document is fairly long the summaries are concise and IMO make for a good read.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Global Forecast 2012
April 11, 2012

http://csis.org/files/publication/12...nal_web-sm.pdf

Excerpts:

Global Forecast 2012 provides a snapshot of CSIS’s collective wisdom on the challenges facing the next administration in the years ahead. Although the focus is on foreign and defense policy, this is a year when our domestic debates are intrinsically tied to long-term success abroad. Failure of the next Administration to recognize the risks and opportunities in both settings will have consequences for years to come.

Washington does not typically focus on objective foreign policy analysis and bipartisan solutions six months before a U.S. Presidential election. Election years by their nature tend to bring out the worst of the partisanship, shrill advocacy, and superficial debate that has come to characterize Americans’ view of the capital. Administrations spend the election run-up trying not to generate unwanted headlines, while opposition parties treat every government action, no matter how small, as a referendum on American power and purpose. In such a hyperbolic environment, strategic thinking and sensible solutions are in short supply.

This campaign season in particular, foreign and defense policy has to date remained largely in the background. This is true for a number of reasons. First, most voters seem to think that electoral success ought to hinge on who will be the best steward of the U.S. economy going forward. Second, one of the main animating issues this cycle is the role of government in American life, something that does not have direct relevance to foreign affairs. And third, the ongoing war in Afghanistan has not become a major campaign issue given the country’s general state of war weariness. When foreign policy issues do arise, such as concern over military confrontation with Iran, they have not sustained the country’s attention. Absent a real crisis, both Republicans and Democrats appear content to make 2012 a “domestic” election.

Of course, Washington’s focus on domestic issues does not mean that challenges abroad dissipate or disappear. In fact, to take as broad of a brush as possible, the two principal dynamics at play at home and abroad right now are working adversely to U.S. interests: contraction of resources on the home front and rising volatility and complexity of challenges overseas. This does not have to equate to American decline, but it does mean added risk. Every senior national security leader in Washington is struggling with how to allocate the shrinking resources on hand to address an expanding problem set.

The overall challenge for the United States is to make decisions of force posture, diplomatic presence, and economic assistance from a comprehensive, long-term, strategic perspective rather than in an ad hoc manner. Decisions to lower troop levels abroad, scale back collection and analysis capabilities, surrender the diplomatic initiative, or slash foreign aid may be budgetary necessities in this new era, but every action will send a signal overseas that will have consequences. Mapping these risks—and indeed, managing them—will not guarantee a safe and prosperous world, but it will certainly be better than the alternative.

What the reader will find here in the 2012 iteration of Global Forecast is an effort to look ahead after November’s elections to predict what will be the main risks and opportunities facing the next administration, whether a second Obama term or the first for a Republican president. What are the big issues facing our country that leaders from both parties are not sufficiently prepared to address? Where is an entrenched policy consensus blinding us to the possibility of sudden change, unintended consequences, or harmful second order effects? How can the United States better recognize and capitalize on new opportunities that might arise? This small volume is not meant to be comprehensive, but to provide a window into the thinking of CSIS’s exceptional team of experts who are in demand every day by the private sector, our government, and the media.

[cbtengr]

Hey remember we have to cut him some slack after all, after the next election, he will have a lot more flexibility to deal with things. He has been nothing but a broken record since the day he took office. Always someone else’s fault or something that is totally out of his control. How dare anyone question anything that has happened on his watch. Then there is his sense of entitlement just do a quick search entitled “Obama questioned about his vacations” Some reporter recently asked him about his various vacations to which he really bristled, he works hard he says. He and his family have taken no fewer than 16 vacations since he has been in office, his wife’s trips alone have been estimated to have cost $10,000,000.00. Everyday Americans tightening their belts while the Obama’s sacrifice nothing, they have no shame.
We the people really are not worthy of this guy.