I had a boss once...

[sendero]

.... at one of my better jobs, the boss was a smart, motivated, hard-driving task-master. He was tough and if you could not cut the mustard you would not be there long. He would lie to you if he thought he had to. We respected him, but we did not like him.

He got into a dispute with the owners and soon decided to leave. Taking his place would be Gerry, a well liked and competent replacement. We were all in hog heaven, we thought we had reached into a bucket of shit and pulled out a gold brick. Working for Gerry was going to be sweet.

But a couple years (it did take some time) we were quite disillusioned with Gerry. He was smart, but he was too nice. When someone came along that could not pull their weight, he wouldn't fire them like our old boss he would shuffle them around, letting them screw up project after project. He simply could not make any tough decisions and we all suffered for it.

I think Obama is just like Gerry. He is just too damn nice a person to be effective in Washington. And that is too bad for him, and for the country.

[FSogol]

1. Washington needs to change, not Obama. n/t

[TxVietVet]

2. We got the best democracy the conservanazis' money can buy.

[DrDan]

4. they are one in the same. . . .

[NNN0LHI]

3. What do you mean by "pulling their weight?"

We had workers of smaller stature who could not do the jobs that some of us bigger sized workers had no problem doing. Should those smaller stature workers(mostly women), have been fired because they were born smaller than some of the other workers?

Not sure where you are going with this?

Don

[sendero]

6. Writing software..

.... no muscles required. But not everyone is capable of doing it well.

And believe me, the folks who cannot do it know they cannot do it and they are miserable. All of their coworkers are miserable because they have to continually clean up their messes in addition to their regular workload.

I don't believe in firing people capricously, but if they cannot do the work nobody wins.

[Sal Minella]

8. Obama can do the work.

But it's impossible to accomplish anything when some people plant their dead butts on the road in front of you and "Just Say No" to any and every form of progress.

"Leadership" requires the cooperation of people who are sane enough to comprehend that they need to be led.

Do not mistake patience for timidity.

[XemaSab]

5. To draw a parallel analogy

My mom's company is owned by a married couple.

The man is really nice, friendly, and helpful, and his wife is a grade A bitch. Like, admin-staff-quitting-in-tears grade A bitch.

My mom wondered for years why the man put up with this real harridan, then it hit her. It's the classic good cop/bad cop trick.

I think Obama plays a decent enough good cop, but he would be a more effective manager if he had a bad cop.

Cheney and Rove were the shrub's bad cops.

Obama needs someone that dickish that he can play off of. Obama's bringing the carrot, but he needs someone to bring the stick.

Carville did it for Clinton. Dean was doing it for a while as head of the DNC (and I say that with all the love in the world for Howard). We thought Biden was going to be the man, but he's been pretty quiet. Rahm's an asshole, but he's on the wrong side. All the women I can think of are doing other things.

Who else could take this role? :shrug:

[madokie]

7. I had a boss like that once too

hell I was a boss sorta like the first one for most of my working life except for the lie to you part. I never lied to them but I'd fire your ass in a heart beat if you were not doing your job but if you were a good worker then you could walk all over me as I know the value of good work.

The party in control during the mid terms almost always loose so I'm not surprised of loosing the house. What I'm surprised of is not losing the senate too.