User profile: dawn

1. "Bureaucracy" is just another word for government; managing it is the president's job.
2. No effective CEO I've heard of puts herself at the mercy of people who know how to manage systems without expertise of her own. Furthermore, COOs are often not even responsible for daily management of an entire organization, but rather specific aspects of it: e.g., overseeing production in a manufacturing firm. On the other hand, CEOs must have deep knowledge of all aspects of their companies to be effective at THEIR jobs because they are the CHIEF systems managers.
3. Abraham Lincoln knew more about winning battles than his first four generals combined. He certainly saw his job as managing the country, at that time, the war. He spent much more of his time reading battle dispatches and overseeing requisitions than composing say, the Gettysburg Address. All of Lincoln's great letters and addresses would have failed in their inspirational purpose absent the solid managerial work he put into actually winning it.
David McCullough, one of Truman's best-known biographers, describes a President who was, at best, an adequate speaker. On the other hand, he reports with approval Truman's paper-flow management and organizational skills, and refers often to the President’s grueling schedule, and his hands-on approach to domestic and foreign policy.
FDR, by Eleanor Roosevelt's account, was deeply involved with the realities of governing. When, as governor (obviously in his post-polio days), he sent her on regular inspection tours of state hospitals, prisons, and public projects, he insisted that she: look into pots to ensure the food served corresponded to menus; notice whether beds were too close together in sleeping areas, or folded up and put in closets or behind doors during the day, indicating that overcrowding was forcing patients/inmates to sleep in corridors at night, and watch the patients' attitudes toward staff for signs of tension, confusion, or fear. Eleanor reported that if she failed to make detailed enough inspections her husband would be very upset. That's the kind of knowledge and experience that FDR took with him to the White House. He knew the important questions to ask and wasn't satisfied with just any answers from his subordinates no matter how knowledgeable or dedicated.
Had Lincoln, Truman, or FDR contented themselves with making inspirational speeches, while trusting others to understand the systems comprising the government with which they were entrusted, they would not have accomplished what they did and we would not have been the beneficiaries.
4) Sen. Obama's record as a legislator does not predict his performance as an executive. His own words, disdaining the responsibilities of the position, are far more telling evidence of what kind of president he would be.

Sen. Obama said that he didn't know how to run a bureaucracy and didn't see it as his job. I cannot imagine a job applicant for a mid-management position at even the most inefficient firm making the following statement and closing the deal.

"But I'm not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of 'here's where the bureaucracy needs to go.'"

In the first place, "going and running" the federal bureaucracy IS the principal responsibility of any president. At least of the United States. Incomprehension on this point demonstrates the kind of stunning political immaturity it is impossible to overstate. And this callowness will have real consequences for people's lives. If the president runs the bureaucracy incompetently, or worse, fails to run it at all, then just for starters: balanced budgets go out the window, mine workers die, pollutants stay in the air and water, worker safety rules of all description are ignored or broken, our hard-earned tax dollars are wasted, corruption runs wild and federal money (OUR money) flows into the hands of corrupt individuals and corporations. Worse comes to worse, disaster victims drown, burn, or suffer as the nation looks on in horror.

Sound familiar? It should. When asked a process question during his 2000 presidential run, George W. Bush derided the idea that a president should master the workings of government. That's what an administration is for, he scolded, or words to that effect. (Wonky old Al Gore, was the subtext, preoccupied with all those unimportant details. I'm a big picture guy.) The rest as they say, has been our country's most recent national nightmare.

Sen. Obama's ignorant and arrogant statement only confirms what I have long suspected: he's all set to become the Democrats' George Bush. More intelligent and well-meaning but essentially the same "present" inside a prettier package.

Presidents don't (just) inspire our bureaucracy: they manage it. Merely putting the right people in the job and teasing out the problems and solutions as Sen. Obama promises to do would be insufficient in any case. But the last 7 years have conclusively proven that a president who doesn't understand how the government works won't be able to do even that much. He won't know who the "right" people are, what questions to ask and what solutions will work any more than a bright, competent lawyer will know how best to treat a patient's abscessed tooth. The day after Sen. Obama is elected is a couple of decades too late to start thinking about what it means to be America's chief executive. If the voters go along with Sen. Obama's cavalier attitude toward our government, America is in for a very nasty surprise.