Being smart is not a useful attribute for a President?
Yeah, who would want a smart President who communicates well?
He did run one thing very well (even historically well)- a Presidential campaign (twice). And his was a billion-dollar enterprise.
Your criticisms are weak. Yes, he’s not perfect… yes, he’s made mistakes- and the website is one of them. But it’s not that significant in the scheme of things. Certainly not even close to the mistakes of his former governor predecessor. It will get fixed, and the ACA will be fully implemented, and the new system will probably work pretty well. In five years, the website story will be a footnote.
Looking back at past Presidents, prior experience as a governor seems to have very little to do with competence. Former governors: Bush II, Clinton, Reagan, Carter- non former governors: Obama, Bush I, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy, Eisenhower. There’s no way the first group was better in management on average.
Not by itself, no. It takes more than smarts to learn how to run a large organization, and it can’t just be learned on the job. By the time Obama actually figures out what he’s doing, he’ll be giving his farewell speech.
Bill Clinton was a really smart guy as well. His first term as governor of Arkansas was disastrous. Being smart, he learned from his mistakes. He also had something Obama doesn’t have: humility. His 2nd successful run for governor consisted mostly of apologizing to the voters and promising that he’d learned much.
It isn’t that necessary to OP this thread.
…There are plenty of Governors, generals, VP’s, even cabinet members who have experience in managing large organizations, and doing this WELL, who would be disasters as President.
“Every Saturday night, adaher puts on a red dress and pink panties and wanders the streets of Chicago.” Describing adaher as I described him is 100% accurate.
Not these are not “facts” that we all agree on. What you stated was not fact. And I don’t agree.
But you, of course, are wrong, so it didn’t matter.
Nope. I completely made it up.
Obama is in the public eye, his biography is known, and I can assess his qualifications for office. And based on all of that: my opinion is that your opinion is factually incorrect and misleading.
Not at all. You are trying to convince me that President Obama is inexperienced. Your cite showed that he made a decision: not that he was “inexperienced.” He made the sort of decision that Governors, generals, VP’s, even cabinet members make all the time. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they get it wrong.
And I think that you do.
Experience is relevant. And Obama is experienced. He doesn’t have the sort of experience that you consider relevant: but why on earth should we care what you think? The United States of America has one of the most convoluted over the top extra extended systems of electing someone to run your country. The whole process lasts many months, involves many layered selection process, and it is in public and it is transparent. If you truly believe that Obama is a “career legislator and never ran anything in his life” and that this person is running the United States of America, then you are indicting the system that elected him and the people who did so. And that is who you should be pitting.
That’s actually wrong. Candidates almost never run their campaigns. They are the products the campaigns are trying to sell. There’s a reason the Carvilles, Roves, and Axelrods of the world get so much glory: they are the brains and the organizers behind winning campaigns.
My criticisms are now backed up by MSM stories revealing how dysfunctional this administration is. Not only does Obama not know how to run anything, he’s mostly appointed people who don’t know how to run anything. The website isn’t the only, or even the main, failure. The non-crazy predictions Republicans made are all coming true, and it was within the President’s power to prevent all of it, while still keeping the law intact. But there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he was interested in implementation aside from the political aspects of it.
I didn’t say they had to be a governor, and I also said they had to have been good at what they did. The advantage of governors is that they don’t surprise much as Presidents. They tend to have all the same strengths and weaknesses. Clinton is the classic example. Nearly everything the man did as governor, he did as President. As for the non-governors:
Bush 41: sterling resume before even becoming VP, which included running the CIA, then served 8 years as VP. Well qualified.
Ford: Won’t judge him because he didn’t get a chance to do much, nor was he particularly interested in doing much. Which was to his credit. Men should know their capabilities.
Nixon: 8 years as VP in a very functional, professional administration under one of the ablest leaders this country has ever had.
LBJ: Successful at legislating. Spectacularly unsuccessful as an administrator. Epic fail as Commander-in-Chief.
Kennedy: too short a time in office, but did have leadership experience in the military.
Ike: well qualified for the Presidency.
Obama is the least qualified person to be elected in our lifetimes. No one even comes close. The results speak for themselves. That being said, his legislative experience did result in bills being passed in his first two years, and for many of his supporters, that’s really all they wanted. Although they are finding out what happens when those poliices don’t get implemented correctly.
Sure. But not because they would fail to govern competently. Because they are lacking in other respects.
If you believe Obama has experience, tell us what it is.
Then explain what experience you believe prepared Barack Obama to be President.
Really? Good governors, generals, cabinet members, choose political allies over competent professionals? I know BAD ones do, but to call this decision normal, or even to say it’s something someone with experience would do is just crazy. Even a bad President wouldn’t make that decision on something that was this damn important to him.
Look, the decision to put his political team in charge of ACA implementation was bad, can we agree on that? Assuming we do, then why did he make such a bad decision? Because he’s stupid? or because he’s inexperienced? Your attitude, that it’s a decision anyone could have made, is just plain wrong.
It’s so wrong because it’s what banana republics do with their military: instead of competent generals, the leaders pick political allies. Earlier in our country’s history, Presidents would reward political allies with an officer’s commission. That worked about as well as you’d expect in 90% of cases. The reason the military doesn’t have many of the same dysfunctions as government bureaucracies today is precisely because officers are no longer chosen for being close to the adminstration.
Doing the same thing in the civilian bureaucracy produces the same results. And true to form, it did. BTW, the other things that the President failed to do was have a single person whose job was to get ACA working. Everyone had other priorities to worry about. That’s a basic management failure.
The system usually works. Obama is a first term junior Senator. JFK was also a junior Senator. Who was more qualified than Obama, having been a military officer with wartime experience. So you have to go back a LONG way to find someone less qualified than Obama.
Are you saying there’s nothing the voters should learn from this? Just go ahead and elevate Liz Warren or Ted Cruz to the Presidency and we’ll be a-OK?
I think we have someone who is about to push Clothahump off the Stupidest Doper throne.
Weak. The candidate runs the campaign in the same way the President runs the country. Which is to say that there’s a lot of delegation, but the man at the top makes the final decisions.
Most of this is false, and the MSM stories behind it are exaggerations or simply don’t say what you think they say. You’re just mostly wrong, as usual.
Yes, the results speak for themselves- he’s mostly supported the same policies that Bill Clinton would have, and he’s gotten more done (chiefly the ACA). He’s also had stronger and even less-compromising opposition. So far I’m as pleased with Obama’s performance as I was with Clinton’s at a similar point- which is to say I have some quibbles, but he’s mostly done things that I support. Your criticisms are weak, silly, and mostly just wrong.
Warren, yes- Cruz, no. Your analysis so far is terrible, and you’re wrong about nearly everything.
Warren and Cruz have equivalent experience. I understand why you’d prefer Warren, but what makes Warren better prepared to be President than Ted Cruz? Or Chris Christie?
and do you really think Bill Clinton would have dropped the ball this badly on the implementation? Is there ANYTHING in Bill Clinton’s Presidential experience that demonstrates that he ever dropped the ball on an issue of basic governance?
you seem to prefer legislative prowess, which I guess is fine. But I’m not questioning his legislative abilities. I’m questioning his executive abilities.
Ah, so appointing his political team to be in charge of the implementation was actually brilliant!
Warren is intelligent and capable of rational thought. Cruz was raised by a racist cumfart and is highly delusional.
I’d say understanding what is reality and what are the insane ramblings of your father is a useful skill for a president.
He’s at least sane, but he pushes nonsense policy. I’d say he’s qualified.
He did drop a load on a fat chick’s mumu. Rookie mistake.
I’m questioning why you keep trying.
Because nothing prepares you to be President. All new presidents are unprepared. Cruz is especially unprepared (more so than Warren and Christie) because he lives in cloud cuckoo-land.
You’re reading too much right wing media. Sure, the rollout sucked. But in a few months, the website will work fine (it’s already working far better), and everyone who wanted to will be signed up for the ACA. And the bad website rollout will be mostly forgotten.
No, I prefer non-idiocy to idiocy.
Clinton’s problems were personal. Obama’s are professional. I take it you can’t think of a time Clinton failed as a President, as opposed to failing as a man.
When you think about it, Clinton had it pretty good. He never had to resort to the “but I didn’t know!” defense. He never had an accountability moment because he never had a failure he had to be held accountable for. Not bad for eight years.
…how on earth can you know this?
Why don’t you ask the American people? They are, after all, the people that elected him twice.
I believe that the United States of America have a complex and involved system of vetting the experience of potential Presidents. Obama managed to get from one end of the system to the other end of the system and is now the President of the United States. I think that his experiences listed here would give me more than enough reason to vote for him as President if I were a citizen of the United States and if I lived in your country.
If you believe that an “inexperienced” person can go through the process and get elected as President of the United States: you are indicting the process, not the President, and you are pitting the wrong thing.
Strawman. But I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. He selected one person with a set of qualifications over…who else was in the running?
Obama made a decision. If it is your opinion that he made the decision he made out of “inexperience” then provide proof for that claim. You seem to also be saying he made this decision based on his “political allies.” So make your mind up will you? Is he inexperienced, or is he practicing cronyism?
No we can’t agree on that. I’m not going to offer my opinion that it was a good or a bad decision. To weigh that decision up I’d need much more information than an anonymous source in an online article.
To qualify to be President of the United States:
The system did work.
Obama appears to be as qualified as every other President of the United States has been. Or are you inventing new qualifications that you expect a President to have that no-one else knows about? Can you list these qualifications: and can you explain why they are not listed anywhere in the Presidential job application?
If you want to know what I’m saying, then read the words that I said.
If that doesn’t convince you, how about the fact that the site is still up despite the security features not being tested?
…what about it?
And I find it amusing that a well sourced article(they had five sources within the administration) isn’t good enough for you. Rather, it’s an “anonymous, online” article, a rather silly way to dismiss it, given that it’s almost certainly in the print version of the Post, and it’s anonymous because nearly ALL inside reports that are negative are going to be anonymous. In the real world, five sources is about as well sourced as this stuff gets. Otherwise, you’re just left with believing whatever the administration says just because it says it.
This doesn’t concern you? Please. I doubt you’d give Straight Dope your private info, I’d be shocked if you actually would trust a site the administration has admitted hasn’t been tested.