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Thanks to Bill Henry Harrison, our ninth President, Barack Obama’s opening month in office is only the second worst in U.S. history. Mr. Harrison died on his 32nd day of governing. Mr. Obama’s health is robust, even if not much else about him is on his 15th day as the shake-shake-shakey commander in the White House.
Mr. Obama’s firing of Tom Daschle as the Health and Human Services Secretary-elect was his smartest move this afternoon.
His smartest move this morning came when he fired the unknown Nancy Killefer, after nominating her for the previously unknown office of Chief Performance Officer.
Mr. Obama has made at least a score of regrettable personnel selections this winter.
But here is the good news:
If he keeps canning them at the rate of two a day, he soon will fulfill his dream and surpass Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington and Harrison. He will end up being called the shrewdest President in the history of the country. This is the only complimentary title within his grasp for the foreseeable future.
Next question, posed this afternoon by Larry Kudlow:
Won’t the ousting of Mr. Daschle and Ms. Killefer for refusing to pay their taxes lead Mr. Obama to the logical conclusion that his other high-profile tax scofflaw, red-white-and-blew Timmy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, also should be dumped, as long as the garbage truck is backed up to the house?
Those of us who would not have voted for Mr. Obama in a one-man race could have foreseen this humiliating pratfall.
Failures Unrelated to His Mind
Certainly not because the President is intellectually lacking, but because his workplace experience is dreadfully limited. He is committing rookie mistakes almost faster than they can be counted. He does not know better. Eager to make a good impression on his backers, he is trying to fulfill all of his ill-advised campaign vows in the first few days.
Any chastened rookie can tell you that is dead wrong.
In a traditional workplace environment, a supervisor would dole out miniature doses of responsibilities the first few weeks to a green hire. His goal would be not to overwhelm, or discourage, the poor slug.
But the new President does not know better because he never has been there before.
The longer Mr. Obama is in office — and we have at least three years and 50 weeks to be patient — the more dumb-cluck rookie mistakes he commits.
As a Personnel Director, he is such an immediate and immense failure he couldn’t get hired in Palms, which doesn’t even have a government. On second thought…
Thankfully, Mr. Obama is not a Republican. If he were, after so many blatant gaffes in his opening fortnight, he would have been hounded out of the Oval Office and forced to crawl inside a cabinet in the White House kitchen for the remaining 206 weeks.
No Experience? Sorry.
A nimble mind, even a rookie employer would tell you, is no substitute for seasoning.
Being able to deliver a closely scripted speech from a brace of teleprompters does not prepare one for judging the character and the quality of people whom you will choose to surround and advise you.
Speaking of advisors, Mr. Obama, with bottomless pockets, has hired more people with the title “advisor” than the last three or four Presidents, cumulatively. That is partially fine. He needs counseling since his workplace experience is largely limited to organizing a community in a Chicago neighborhood.
But this supposedly keen mass-hiring tactic merely sets up Mr. Obama to fall on his nose again.
Since he is as green and un-ripe as a pre-spring tomato, what is his touchstone for judging whose counsel is wise?
He has no previously known basis for rendering mature decisions.
The Storm Is Nearing
As a kid, I would retreat to the basement, near the bin, when the Beckert Co. delivered a month’s supply of coal each winter. I was in awe of the sheer force of the coal loudly being poured through a small window. I nearly shuddered.
With Mr. Obama in the White House, I am returning to the basement. I await an updated version of the deluge.
