ZING! Richad Cohen: "I suggest naming it the "George W. Bush Institute of Management Failure""

[jefferson_dem]

Failures to Communicate

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; A17

Former president George W. Bush and some of his White House aides are gathering in Dallas this week to plan the future George W. Bush Policy Institute. There, I guess, they will ponder grand themes and marble foyers, but I propose they begin by simply renaming the place. I suggest naming it the "George W. Bush Institute of Management Failure" and dedicating it to studying how this presidency went so wrong -- a task as big as Texas itself.

Bush's tenure was truly remarkable. He left office with the lowest presidential poll ratings in 60 years, two wars begun and not ended, and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. If it's true that we learn from our mistakes, Bush's eight years represent a bonanza of lessons.

What commends the Bush presidency to further study was its sheer managerial ineptitude. This is irony aplenty for a man not known for irony. Bush's one area of expertise, after all, supposedly was in management. Not only had he been a businessman, but he had graduated from Harvard Business School. Bush was the Decider. He was a delegator. He was precise and punctual -- early to the office, early out of the office and a clean desk at all times. Wow!

Conventional wisdom holds that the bungling of the Iraq war was a consequence of ideology run amok. Maybe. But it was also an example of awful management. Whether you supported the war or opposed it, you have to concede that it should have ended years ago and, along with the invasion of Grenada, be a fit dissertation subject for a desperate PhD candidate and not, as it remains, a festering debacle.

<SNIP>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/13/AR2009041301949_pf.html

[bluerum]

1. 'a festering debacle' - a diservice to debacles everywhere.

[AndyA]

2. George Bush + failure = same thing

His entire life has been one failure after another. No one is better equipped to define and document failure than George W. Bush. He should be very thankful that he was born into a privileged family, because if he hadn't been he would have been found passed out drunk in a Texas alley before he made it to 30 years of age, and chances are he would have never made it to 40.

[YOY]

3. 'studying how this presidency went so wrong -- a task as big as Texas itself'

Not really.

-He was propped up to be president based off of his blood line.

-He really was not a good choice on any level.

-He was a weak personality used by the forces who put him in place.

I just did their work for them.

Expecting a legacy MBA to be a smart and capable leader is like expecting an Easter European villager to perform brain surgery. Sure he had the opportunity to learn how to do it if he actually applied himself and took the effort...but it's not fucking likely.

[Hamlette]

5. true that. No study necessary, just acceptance

preferably by the media and all of America. This is what happens when you elect someone based on whether you'd like to have a beer with him or not.

The last part of the article, about Karl, is laughable. These people are sociopaths. They will never recognize that they did anything wrong. If they did, they could never live with themselves.

[apr09]

4. Cohen is right, but he wanted Scooter Libby to be free and opposes investigating torture

I don't respect him or Bush.