I have a lot of respect for David Rothkopf but I have a hard to time taking his critique of the president seriously because he really doesn’t back up his argument with much of anything. He says that President Obama is a “lousy manager.” He says that his management grade is a ‘C’ and that it is only that high because his predecessor was so awful.
His main critique is a familiar one. Supposedly, the president doesn’t delegate enough power to his cabinet. I keep hearing this, but I rarely see any examples. Hillary Clinton seemed to shine in her role as Secretary of State, traveling tremendous distances and working so hard that you couldn’t even describe it as tirelessly. She worked to exhaustion. Did she need more responsibility?
Secretary Geithner seemed to run the show at Treasury, sometimes to the point of openly defying the White House. Did he not have enough discretion and power? I would argue the opposite.
Secretaries Gates and Panetta seem to have had few problems exercising their prerogatives. If they felt cut out of the loop, Rothkopf doesn’t provide any examples.
Secretary Duncan seems to have been running the show at the Department of Education without too much interference from above.
Health Secretary Sebelius has been as busy as a bee designing and implementing ObamaCare.
I struggle to see how this cabinet has been shut out and underutilized. Maybe the Commerce Department has been a little chaotic, with unsettled leadership, but that was hardly the president’s fault and, in any case, who really cares?
I would have liked to see a higher profile for Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Perhaps the criticism would be warranted here.
Even the Transportation Department and Veteran’s Affairs can boast major legislative accomplishments over Obama’s first term.
Rothkopf’s expertise lies with observing the National Security Council and the national security apparatus, and he might have a point if he limited himself to those areas, but that’s not what he’s doing. He’s talking about the Cabinet in general. Just observing that Valerie Jarrett rubs some people the wrong way is not a convincing argument that Obama is a lousy manager.
Rothkopf mentions climate change as one failure arising from poor management. I think it was poor politics to have the House pass a cap and trade bill that had no chance of passing in the Senate, but it was Republican flip-flopping on the issue that caused the failure. Remember that John McCain and Sarah Palin ran on a cap and trade platform.
Rothkopf feels that the administration dragged its feet in dealing with the crises in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, but he doesn’t explain how the management of his cabinet would explain that. It’s seems to me that the administration moved with appropriate caution in all three cases.
I understand his overall point that the American people and the Senate should place more emphasis on management experience when considering candidates for the presidency or to head major departments, but his specific complaints are so sparse and so poorly sourced that his column is basically an ad hominem attack.
