A Sunday New York Times front page story — New York Times! — might have killed President Obama’s re-election hopes.
The story is called “The Competitor in Chief — Obama Plays To Win, In Politics and Everything Else.” It is devastating.
With such a title, and from such a friendly organ, at first I thought Jodi Kantor’s piece would be a collection of Obama’s greatest political wins: His rapid rise in Illinois, his win over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, the passage of health care, and so on.
But the NYT piece is not about any of that. Rather, it is a deep look into the two outstanding flaws in Obama’s executive leadership:
1. How he vastly overrates his capabilities:
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But even those loyal to Mr. Obama say that his quest for excellence can bleed into cockiness and that he tends to overestimate his capabilities. The cloistered nature of the White House amplifies those tendencies, said Matthew Dowd, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, adding that the same thing happened to his former boss. “There’s a reinforcing quality,” he said, a tendency for presidents to think, I’m the best at this.
2. How he spends extraordinary amounts of time and energy to compete in — trivialities.
- For someone dealing with the world’s weightiest matters, Mr. Obama spends surprising energy perfecting even less consequential pursuits. He has played golf 104 times since becoming president, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who monitors his outings, and he asks superior players for tips that have helped lower his scores. He decompresses with card games on Air Force One, but players who do not concentrate risk a reprimand (“You’re not playing, you’re just gambling,” he once told Arun Chaudhary, his former videographer).
His idea of birthday relaxation is competing in an Olympic-style athletic tournament with friends, keeping close score. The 2009 version ended with a bowling event. Guess who won, despite his history of embarrassingly low scores? The president, it turned out, had been practicing in the White House alley.
Kantor’s piece is full of examples of Obama’s odd need to dominate his peers in everything from bowling, cards, golf, basketball, and golf (104 times in his presidency). Bear in mind, Obama doesn’t just robustly compete. The leader of the free world spends many hours practicing these trivial pursuits behind the scenes. Combine this weirdly wasted time with a consistent overestimation of his capabilities, and the result is, according to NYT’s Kantor:
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He may not always be as good at everything as he thinks, including politics. While Mr. Obama has given himself high grades for his tenure in the White House — including a “solid B-plus” for his first year — many voters don’t agree, citing everything from his handling of the economy to his unfulfilled pledge that he would be able to unite Washington to his claim that he would achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Those were not the only times Mr. Obama may have overestimated himself: he has also had a habit of warning new hires that he would be able to do their jobs better than they could.
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
Though he never ran a large organization before becoming president, he initially dismissed internal concerns about management and ended up with a factionalized White House and a fuzzier decision-making process than many top aides wanted.
Kantor’s portrait of Obama is stunning. It paints a picture of a CEO who is unfocused and lost.
Imagine, for a minute, that you are on the board of directors of a company. You have a CEO who is not meeting his numbers and who is suffering a declining popularity with his customers. You want to help this CEO recover, but then you learn he doesn’t want your help. He is smarter than you and eager to tell you this. Confidence or misplaced arrogance? You’re not sure at first. If the company was performing well, you’d ignore it. But the company is performing poorly, so you can’t.
With some digging, you learn, to your horror, that the troubled CEO spends a lot of time on — what the hell? — bowling? Golf? Three point shots? While the company is going south?
What do you do? You fire that CEO. Clint Eastwood was right. You let the guy go.
A real leader doesn’t look down on others, knows how to manage his time, not waste it on an abundance of trivial pursuits to prove he is better at everything. does not insult his subordinates by telling them he is smarter and more capable than they are, a person like that will not be a good listener or take advice as he “knows more/is better”than the experts around him, a good executive doesn’t grossly overestimate his knowledge and abilities,when he routinely takes excessive time off to play,he is a poor role model for staff,
he overstimates his strengthds and doen’t see his weaknesses…Sorry but he wouldn;’t last 5 minutes as a supervisor in a Fortune 5oo company…CEO, forget it, he would never even get to be a first line Supervisor.
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He has no management,or leadership experience, he has no business experience, he has never “run/managed” anything.
how much better off the country would be if he ran a lemonade stand for the summer when he was 11.He has never worked in a real organization or in the real economy.
He couldn’t be less qualified.
He could never get the security clearance to clean the toilets in the Pentagon, given all of his terrorist friends, Hate- America friends, Hate- Whitey friends,Hate-military friends, and hate Israel/Jews ( Loius Farakhan, black panthers, etc)
“2016” solves the other paert of the mystery…who is this guy who has spent millions to seal everyone of his records and hide his background???What does he want to Transform America to???
God help America if he is re-elected..we will be a marxist state with greatly reduced freedoms…a cross between venezuela and russia!
ecords
@ MARTIN:
A person like this might be just right for a subordinate position, pretty low on the ladder, not for a top position, and certainly not for a CEO, who would require quite a few specific qualities which were conspicuous by their absence in your list, which was considerably incomplete. Many of those qualities you mention, in a CEO, would need to be subordinated to other, more neccessary, and even contrary qualities.
Seems to me the article in the NYT may be seen as negative but was not as devastating of Obama reelection chances as some may be too quick to think. What we have here is a go-getter, a guy that “must win” no matter the consequences. Isn’t that the sort of guy a personnel interviewer would think he’s a guy who will contribute to the company — he’s quick, mentally agile, speaks well, shows confidence in what he does, is willing to do battle for a cause. What’s so much here to dislike? The article did not address or critique Obama, The president, only Obama, the man. Or what am I missing?
If you have seen the movie 2016, you understand Barack. Scary thought that the US Jews might be responsible for getting him re-elected.
Most demo and far left will not pay attention to the NYT. The majority of Americans are not told or do not want to know about the hidden agenda of the left and far left.
Perhaps, other than his Islamic tendencies and associations with Jew haters, this helps to explain his animosity to bibi.
Lets hope he never gets back to this agenda.
It is odd that when hiring the CEO there is not talk about the usual job qualifications involving experience and character. Perhaps it is the HR manager that also needs firing. It is also odd, and noteworthy, that there never appears to be anyone applying for the position as being of excellent credentials and qualifications. Hard to imagine the choices always presented as being the best that a nation of over 300 million can come up with. My gut tells me that whoever you choose you end up with the short end of the stick.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!! LET THE GUY GO………………L-OLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/ HESED
HE IS NOT “FOR” ISRAEL…..He is a GOD “DEFIER….” A LIAR/HESED