What's going on in the White House? Or It's competence, stupid.

[bklyncowgirl]

As someone who believes that government can be a force for good, someone who voted twice for, who donated to and worked for Barak Obama, and wants him to succeed I am becoming increasingly disturbed by what seems to be sheer incompetence on the part of his administration, which makes me think, unfortunately, that our President, who is a man with great rhetorical gifts and a humane and decent vision of where this country should be is a lousy manager.

Mind you, it's not his job to call the White House's maintenance department to fix the door alarm. It is his job to appoint a someone whose job it is to make sure that the head of White House Operations makes sure that all of this very expensive equipment is in prime working order, that Secret Service agents are on duty when and where they're supposed to be and most importantly, to tell the president things that he is not going to want to hear.

If it was just this, I wouldn't be as concerned but we've seen one thing after another go wrong. The fact that the President was totally blindsided by the fact that his greatest achievement, the Affordable Care Act was about to be turned into a national joke by a malfunctioning website is more evidence that something is seriously wrong in the White House. The fact that the President was completely blindsided by Isis, and seemed to have no clue that going golfing right after responding to the beheading of an American journalist might be fodder for the right wing.

My take on this is that any President needs someone at his side who has the management skills and the willingness to bust heads if he or she has to in order to get the White House on track so that the chief executive is free to concentrate on the big picture. Rahm Emanuel, as much as I disliked his politics, served this purpose in his first term. Since then, things have gone downhill.

I realize that many people will not like what I'm saying, but the truth is that Democrats, the party which believes that government can be a force for good, have got to deliver on that promise. I value good progressive ideas but ideas are not enough if you are not able to implement them well and make them work efficiently and within budget. Yes, the ACA was fixed, kind of sort of, although all too many people are completely unaware of that fact. "Good enough for government work" just doesn't cut it any more.

[CJCRANE]

1. You can't manage people

who don't want to be managed.

The President isn't like a normal employer who gets to choose everyone in his team (i.e. in the government).

Half of the team has been chosen by someone else (GOP voters) who specifically want to prove that government doesn't work.

It's a difficult balancing act to get things done while trying to accommodate or work with the obstructionists.

[CJCRANE]

4. Bushco didn't want to be efficient in the first place.

[bklyncowgirl]

7. That's certainly part of it but it's not the whole story.

The management team has leeway to reward and punish employees--or at least make life very unpleasant for the obstructionists. To do this the managers have to be assertive, engaged and proactive and at the same time make it clear that they want to hear bad news before it gets any higher.

My concern is that the president's team seems to be remarkably complacent.

Imagine what would have happened if the bad news that the Obamacare website was not working as advertised had made it up the chain of command and the fixes that eventually made it work been put in place before it launched. At the worst there would have been a briefly embarrassing announcement--followed by a successful launch.

Why does this Secret Service Head still have her job? For that matter, why does Debbie Wasserman Schultz still have her job?

[brush]

30. It's not like this president created the Secret Service . . .

or wrote the error-filled code for the ACA website.

He, along with the rest of us, expect people to do their job competently, after all, the Secret Service has been in place dating back to the 19th century.

Perhaps taking it out of Treasury and lumping it into Homeland Security shouldn't have been done.
Nevertheless, the woman in charge will probably be shown the door in a few weeks, as was the one in charge of the ACA web site creation.

Sometimes people are just not up to the job, unfortunately for the Secret Service director, it was some of her people on the ground that had serious lapses in professionalism.

But do you really expect the president to be micromanaging professionals as if he didn't have anything else to do?

[bklyncowgirl]

33. My point was that the president needs someone strong to handle these details

I agree, the president should not be micromanaging. He needs a strong chief of staff to do that sort of stuff for him so he doesn't have to.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I'm not defending or attacking the pres...

I'm not defending or attacking the pre but a very large percentage of the bureaucracy are civil servants and are already in place when a new administration arrives.

[yesiwasacop]

23. So are you telling us that the President

cannot ensure inept members of his security detail are fired, given remedial training or otherwise removed from a sensitive position such as a security detail for the Pres of the US?

Sure they are gov't employees, but they can be canned if needed. I dont now where this notion that gov't employees cant be fired comes from. It isnt hard if the supervisor documents performance and the re-training given. If the employee doesnt respond or remains incapable of properly performing- they can be fired. It is easy, just takes a willingness to tell someone to their face that they suck at their job.

Doesnt matter who hired them- they can be dealt with.

[former9thward]

34. The Executive branch is 100% chosen by the President.

Everyone in a policy making position is chosen by the President. He can replace any of them whenever he wants.

[CJCRANE]

36. Who holds the purse strings?

[former9thward]

37. No excuse for mismangement.

And that is what is going on with the SS.

[newfie11]

2. +infinity nt

[notadmblnd]

5. Well, ever since they took that big giant S off his chest he become just a man.

nt

[tularetom]

6. If the President is reluctant to kick ass and take names he should hire someone who isn't

I wouldn't go so far as to say Rahm Emanuel would be any good in the role, but yeah, he needs somebody who is just as big of an asshole but without Emanuel's baggage. Presidents just don't have time for routine management tasks.

Failing to clean house of incompetent personnel isn't peculiar to Obama however. Just think back to Harriet Miers or Heckuvajob Brownie.

Whatever the cause of this problem is, it's totally within the President's purview to fix it. This time I don't think we can blame congress.

[bklyncowgirl]

8. I agree with you on that.

Rahm may have made the White House trains run on time but his ties to big pharma and the insurance companies pretty much hobbled the ACA.

Obama needs a tough manager to kick some butt and also to tell him things he does not want to hear--a democratic version of Reagan and Bush I's Jim Baker.

[geek tragedy]

9. You agree with Politico apparently, that Obama is to blame for the danger

he and his family were facing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025606525#op

Golden rule of DU: Someone will always find a way to blame Obama for anything

[bklyncowgirl]

10. Competence counts. I want the President I voted for to do his job better than he is doing it.

If this was an isolated event, I could blow it off as right wing propaganda. Sadly it isn't.

The fact is that if Democrats cannot deliver on effective, efficient government they will lose and lose big. People don't want pretty promises--they want things to work better, for government to make a positive difference in their lives. If Democrats do not insist on competence first then those few persuadable voters will turn to the guys who promise to get it out of their way.

Obama didn't come up through the ranks as a governor or a mayor--he's a legislator. He needs someone to help him where he is lacking so he can focus on the big picture.

[JoePhilly]

12. You left out he was "just a community organizer" ...

... from that list of right wing talking points.

[Feral Child]

15. Thanks, Joe.

I was thinking the same.

As I pointed out elsewhere, did Reagan get condemned for incompetence for letting his SS detail fail to stop a shooter?

[MohRokTah]

14. Right wing word salad.

Man.

Just wow.

[Schema Thing]

31. I suspect things aren't much better or worse than at any other time

in any other presidency.


The fact that we are reading about it now, makes it seem like a widespread crisis. But that is our current, egocentric perception, not reality as reality spans all departments at all times.



That said, I want this fixed.

[bklyncowgirl]

32. You're right, screw ups happen.

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't. Normally these problems are handled internally, an investigation is done and people responsible are disciplined: meaning reprimanded, demoted, transferred or fired. If these incidents are not being handled properly then there is a failure of management.

Like you I want it fixed.

[tularetom]

11. Reluctant as I am to agree with Politico about anything

Who else has the power to force the Secret Service to clean up its act?

The OP is correct, in that Obama is not temperamentally suited to be a tough manager and besides he's trying to deal with wars, Ebola, health care, immigration, and a bazillion other things. He needs somebody to handle the day to day details of government and that most importantly includes the safety of the President and his family (who, BTW, never asked to be put in this position).

I'm not sure if he can remove the Secret Service from the corrupt, hack-filled Department of Fatherland Security by executive order, but if he can, he should, or else make a real push to get congress to do it.

The ball is pretty much in his court here.

[MohRokTah]

13. WOW, blaming Obama for his own assassination.

Just fucking unbelievable.

Fucking unbelievable.

[tularetom]

16. WOW is right

You'd better go get some new glasses, the ones you have are allowing you to read stuff that isn't even there.

Seriously, dude, you need to calm down a bit, go back and read that post again, and then show me where I blamed Obama for anything, let alone an assassination that hasn't occurred and hopefully won't.

Otherwise I'm gonna have to put you on ignore, because I don't respond well to hysterical emotional nonsense.

[MohRokTah]

18. You agreed with Politico.

In that Politico article, THEY BLAMED OBAMA FOR HIS OWN ASSASSINATION SHOULD IT COME!

Maybe you should get some new glasses.

[bklyncowgirl]

22. The politico article pointed out problems in the Secret Service. These problems are real.

These problems need to be fixed and fixed soon.

Yes, that last line was inflammatory but there seems to be a high tolerance for failure in this White House and just listening to the White House spokesperson blathering away on MSNBC they don't seem to be getting the message.

Competence counts. It counts frankly more than pretty words with people who do not live and breathe politics. The Obama administration, when it needs to, mainly when the President himself gets involved, as he did after the Obamacare debacle, can be very competent.

My point is that the president needs someone with a managers skill set to make sure that things run smoothly in the White House so he can concentrate on the big picture as he should.

[MohRokTah]

25. You and I have nothing to disucss

I refuse to read any post by somebody who would blame the president for his own assassination, thus I did not read your post.

[yesiwasacop]

26. At work a couple days ago one of my co-workers had RT wing radio on and

I think it was Rush (anyway one of those guys) and they played a clip of Obama and both his press secretaries saying "the first time we were aware of this is from the news" and they were different instances for major events. They were mocking them for not being aware of what was going on in their own organization. I remember hearing this same excuse several times now so I dont think that is made up. Maybe embellished, but I have heard the President say that a couple times. Not good.

[bklyncowgirl]

29. Admittedly there has not anything close to the greatest failures of the Bush administration..

but it is never good when presidents feed the narrative that their enemies build around them.

In my opinion, Obama is not at all incompetent but he is overwhelmed with problems on all sides, and overly protected by his staff who do not always serve him well.

My point is only that Obama needs a strong manager at the White House so that he is not always blindsided by the failure of his subordinates.

[bklyncowgirl]

19. Do you find the Secret Service Director's performance acceptable?

My point was, competence matters.

Competence mattered when Bush appointed Heckuva Job Brownie as head of FEMA. Why does competence not matter now because it's a Democrat in office?

Dismiss this as "right wing word salad" and circle the wagons if you want as you did in a post above, the fact remains that this individual failed at her job and lied about it. I'd fire someone for that, wouldn't you?

[MohRokTah]

20. You agreed with Politicoi

Politico blamed Obama for his own assassination.

I have nothing further to discuss with you after you agreed with that bullshit.

[tularetom]

24. I think you're wasting your time trying to introduce logic into this discussion

Clearly, if you agree with even one word in the Politico article, you BELIEVE THAT OBAMA IS TO BLAME FOR HIS OWN ASSASSINATION.

[bklyncowgirl]

27. Thanks, you're right. So silly of me. nt

[Feral Child]

17. See my post #15, please.

[Tatiana]

28. I'm not going to blame the President for the SS failures.

However, what I will say is that he very rarely forces a fight over vital issues to the American public. Politics is, in many ways, a blood sport. While having someone intellectually capable (after Bush) with outstanding communication skills who kept himself above the fray worked well to get him elected, it has been anathema to pushing forward his agenda (and I believe he does have a fairly decent one). It took nearly six long years into his Presidency before he basically told the Republicans to "bring it on" and issued executive orders.

We needed that man from the get-go. We saw in the beginning that the Republican strategy was going to be to deny Obama any victory period. In this respect, we needed Obama's brains but Rahm's "brawn." Meaning, we needed someone with muscle who played hardball and could twist arms to get the necessary outcome. It is ironic to hear the President say that a group like ISIS only responds to force. The same could apply to the Republicans who have held this government hostage.

Why hasn't anyone tried to use force on them?

[former9thward]

35. Obama appointed a SS Director who was tasked with reforming the SS.

After the prostitution scandals, etc. This Director is not up to the task. He needs to appoint another.