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Detachment and too many chefs could spoil the soup

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
President Obama: "And we then, we will then, uh, provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than, uh, one year from now. We will be... Uhhh ... Ummm. ... Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees? Is that it, eh, uh, what we're doing?"

White House Counsel Greg Craig: "We'll set up a process."

I can think of four possible explanations for this almost unprecedented presidential detachment from the decision-making of policies the president publicly declared to be vital to the country and his presidency:

(1) He is a very, very big picture man and he delegates decisions even on the central points of vital issues.

(2) For tactical reasons, he has decided these matters were not worth using up political chits.

(3) He is either hesitant or unskilled at management and let matters drift until it seemed too late to personally intervene.

(4) Or his personality type leaves him surprisingly uninterested in things that aren't personally about him.

Whatever the reason, this level of presidential detachment from high policy decision-making is dangerous in a White House that has so many czars and other senior players (the West Wing staff is reputed to be above 130 - about double the usual number) combined with emissaries and strong-willed Cabinet secretaries. It may well lead to what has been called (regarding another country's government "the immanent structurelessness to the running of the state."

Tony Blankley is the author of "American Grit: What It Will Take To Survive and Win in the 21st Century" and vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/the-new-presidents-governing-style/
 
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