# I pit inexperienced Presidents who don't know what they are doing **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 4, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042 "2013-11-04T07:24:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/1 "2013-11-04T07:24:08Z")
One in particular, the current one. Although anyone who suggests Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Liz warren for President should learn from this. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/challenges-have-dogged-obamas-health-plan-since-2010/2013/11/02/453fba42-426b-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78\_story.html?hpid=z1](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/challenges-have-dogged-obamas-health-plan-since-2010/2013/11/02/453fba42-426b-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html?hpid=z1) > [@](#): > > In May 2010, two months after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aides were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, and Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, had just received a pointed four-page memo from a trusted outside health adviser. It warned that no one in the administration was “up to the task” of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies of translating the 2,000-page statute into reality. > > Summers, Orszag and their staffs agreed. For weeks that spring, a tug of war played out inside the White House, according to five people familiar with the episode. On one side, members of the economic team and Obama health-care adviser Zeke Emanuel lobbied for the president to appoint an outside health reform “czar” with expertise in business, insurance and technology. On the other, the president’s top health aides — who had shepherded the legislation through its tortuous path on Capitol Hill and knew its every detail — argued that they could handle the job. > > n the end, the economic team never had a chance: The president had already made up his mind, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid. Obama wanted his health policy team — led by Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform — to be in charge of the law’s arduous implementation. Since the day the bill became law, the official said, the president believed that “if you were to design a person in the lab to implement health care, it would be Nancy-Ann.” > > Three and a half years later, such insularity — in that decision and others that would follow — has emerged as a central factor in the disastrous rollout of the new federal health insurance marketplace, casting doubt on the administration’s capacity to carry out such a complex undertaking. > > “They were running the biggest start-up in the world, and they didn’t have anyone who had run a start-up, or even run a business,” said David Cutler, a Harvard professor and health adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, who was not the individual who provided the memo to The Washington Post but confirmed he was the author. “It’s very hard to think of a situation where the people best at getting legislation passed are best at implementing it. They are a different set of skills.” Many have tried to allow the President to dodge accountability, on the facile logic that he didn’t code the site. However, he does decide the broad approach to making his initiatives work, and here is a classic case of not having the foggiest notion of how to run an organization. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/2 "2013-11-04T07:29:21Z")
Oh, you mean like Eisenhower? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/3 "2013-11-04T07:30:36Z")
It’s just a top-down initiative. It’s sure to encounter problems on the downstream because new strategies will invariably shake up the existing structure. IRR’s still have to be worked out. It doesn’t look too serious, unless it’s really impossible to implement. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/4 "2013-11-04T07:41:46Z")
I’m sure it was bound to encounter problems. Which doesn’t mean that just anyone should have been delegated the job. It’s like saying people are going to die in war anyway so it doesn’t matter who your generals are. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/5 "2013-11-04T07:45:25Z")
Wait, I don’t have all facts. Does it, after 3 years, have a complete set of implementing rules and regulations? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/6 "2013-11-04T07:46:31Z")
The article infers that this stuff was completed, but very late in the process due to political considerations. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/7 "2013-11-04T08:14:56Z")
We once had a very experienced president: 30 years on the job. We called him Generalísimo. Maybe you should try that. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/8 "2013-11-04T08:26:29Z")
Or, we could elect a governor, someone who actually has experience running a bureaucracy. these types of fundamental mistakes didn’t happen under Bill Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/9 "2013-11-04T08:27:46Z")
Yes, it’s a shame the federal health care exchange was so poorly implemented. If only the states had been allowed to create their own. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/10 "2013-11-04T08:37:41Z")
Well, in a sensible world, the Democratic governors who did a good job on their state exchanges would be in the top tier of Presidential candidates for 2016. But since the Democratic Party stopped caring about competence, few in the party will even know their names. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/11 "2013-11-04T08:46:36Z")
…can you name a single first time President who had experience being President prior to being President? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/12 "2013-11-04T08:56:52Z")
Missing the point. Governors, generals, VPs, even some cabinet members, have experience in managing large organizations. If they did that well, chance are that they can do well in the Presidency. A person who was a career legislator and never ran anything in his life, will tend to have predictable results. Obama understands politics. And as the article shows, politics was foremost in his mind during this process, and it got in the way of actually making the program work. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/13 "2013-11-04T08:58:18Z")
He didn’t mean inexperienced as a president but rather inexp. in terms of administration and policy formulation. When was the last time an ex-Governor became prez? The Gov, as I understand it, is the real training for future chiefs. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/14 "2013-11-04T09:02:25Z")
This post is destined for unnecessary snark because of the name attached to it. **adaher** thanks for the good read. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/15 "2013-11-04T09:05:12Z")
Exactly. Besides, if one wants to argue that experience doesn’t matter, then the only alternative explanation of the President’s actions is stupidity. He was warned by his economic team that he needed people who actually understood how to manage such large projects, and he instead chose his political team. From everything we know about Barack Obama, he’s not stupid. So his lack of management and leadership experience explains the problems within his administration, which go way beyond health care. The most disturbing problem being that he’s left in the dark about things he really needs to know. yet hasn’t appeared to make any effort to change that culture within his administration, a culture that “protects” the President by shielding him from the accountability of knowing what’s going on. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/16 "2013-11-04T09:11:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The article infers that this stuff was completed, but very late in the process due to political considerations. The article may have implied but you inferred. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/17 "2013-11-04T09:11:06Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > This post is destined for unnecessary snark because of the name attached to it. **adaher** thanks for the good read. I put it in the Pit so that people could snark freely.🙂 However, I’d caution the snarkers, for those who make fun of my “skewed polls” misfire, I also spent a lot of time pointing out the President’s basic inability to do his job due to incompetence and being obsessed with political considerations to an extent we haven’t seen, well, ever. It wasn’t the kind of thing that could be proven with a cite, because you had to notice all the little things he did wrong that violated basic management principles, and have a basic understanding of those principles oneself. Now the MSM is doing in depth analyses of what went wrong, and we’re seeing exactly how a President clueless about administration screws up his most important intiative. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/18 "2013-11-04T09:25:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Missing the point. Governors, generals, VPs, even some cabinet members, have experience in managing large organizations. If they did that well, chance are that they can do well in the Presidency. …managing large organizations does not equal the presidency. There are plenty of Governors, generals, VP’s, even cabinet members who have experience in managing large organizations but would be disasters as a President. Fortunately they rarely get elected because most Americans aren’t stupid enough to think that “managing a large organization” is the primary criteria for electing a President. > [@](#): > > A person who was a career legislator and never ran anything in his life, will tend to have predictable results. Obama understands politics. And as the article shows, politics was foremost in his mind during this process, and it got in the way of actually making the program work. Describing Obama as a “career legislator and never ran anything in his life” is as accurate as stating “adaher is a 40 year old man who lives in his mums basement and has no real life experience and isn’t in the position to determine the credentials of the President of the United States.” You guys elected him twice. Surely you should be pitting both yourself and your fellow Americans? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/19 "2013-11-04T10:03:33Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …managing large organizations does not equal the presidency. There are plenty of Governors, generals, VP’s, even cabinet members who have experience in managing large organizations but would be disasters as a President. Fortunately they rarely get elected because most Americans aren’t stupid enough to think that “managing a large organization” is the primary criteria for electing a President. I said if they did it WELL. Of course, there are other considerations, but relevant experience is necessary. > [@](#): > > Describing Obama as a “career legislator and never ran anything in his life” is as accurate as stating “adaher is a 40 year old man who lives in his mums basement and has no real life experience and isn’t in the position to determine the credentials of the President of the United States.” Describing Obama as I described him is 100% accurate. These are facts we all agree on. What we disagreed on in the 2008 election was whether it mattered. Obviously, we now know it did matter. The way you describe me is supposition based on what you know of me from an anoymous discussion board. If I had been in the public eye and my biography known, you’d be much better able to assess my qualifications for office. Your last point seems to be a “who are we to question our betters?”-type argument. I have no answer for that. And don’t think I particularly need one. > [@](#): > > You guys elected him twice. Surely you should be pitting both yourself and your fellow Americans? This pitting is intended for anyone who thinks experience is irrelevant, and yes, there are many conservatives eager to elevate some neophyte Republicans just because they have the “correct” views and because they “fight”, which apparently is more important than governing successfully. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042/20 "2013-11-04T10:05:17Z")
And I’d note that when Americans elected Barack Obama, his experience or lack thereof was simply not a factor considered. Rather, “He speaks so well!” and “He’s so smart!” were the primary compliments given. Which is about as useful for the Presidency as Sarah Palin’s good looks. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-inexperienced-presidents-who-dont-know-what-they-are-doing/673042.md?page=2)