A thinker who doesn’t like to lead

Hi Katalusis readers,


Just so you know, I did my duty this morning and voted. Afterward, I backtracked to yesterday's Washington Post and found confirmation for what I've long suspected:  being a thinker is not enough for the president of the United States - other qualities are required. 

 

Pundits are just now discovering a major difference between Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, as cited by Eilperin and Nakamura at the Washington Post: “Bush is a leader who didn’t like to think,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk-management firm. “Obama is a thinker who doesn’t like to lead.”

In their article titled Where did Obama go wrong? Eilperin and Nakamura write:

The week after his reelection, President Obama was a man full of promise and promises: His job-approval rating stood at 54 percent, the 2010 tea party wave that had knocked his first term off balance appeared to have receded, and he seemed as sober about the future as he was hopeful.
“With respect to the issue of mandate, I’ve got one mandate . . . to help middle-class families and families that are working hard to try to get into the middle class,” he said at a news conference in the East Room of the White House in November 2012. Obama acknowledged the dangers of “presidential overreach in second terms,” but he put forward an expansive, legacy-building agenda: a major fiscal deal, immigration reform and action on climate change.

Two bruising years later, he has registered progress only on addressing climate change, and a president who once boasted of a barrier-breaking liberal coalition is under fire from his own party as his Republican rivals are poised to make gains in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

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