Time to Fire the CEO - and that's Obama

The still uncontrolled oil leak spewing into the Gulf of Mexico has confirmed the fears we voiced on the eve of Obama’s inauguration 17 months ago. Here’s part of what we wrote then:

The Man has NO Experience as an Executive

There are mid-level managers at mid-size companies who have made more executive decisions than Barack Obama. A state representative and a US Senator are not executive decision-makers; they are political ‘positioners’ who jockey for soundbites and occasionally vote, while retaining ability to explain with hindsight why the vote was right, or if it was wrong, why it was based on bad information or improper influences. There is no real accountability; and the mild political heat stirred by a particular vote is not even remotely comparable to the pressure that follows an actual decision that affects millions. We think Obama the intellectual may have convinced himself that anyone can do this job and it’s no big deal; if so, it only confirms just how clueless and arrogant he is about the magnitude of this difference. His pattern of voting ‘present’ in the Illinois legislature may have been a shrewd way to avoid a voting record that could be criticized, but it doesn’t indicate the strength of character that is actually required of a chief executive.

Obama’s supporters are casting their imaginations on him when they argue that winning a political campaign is akin to presidential leadership and decision-making. The office of the Presidency is not a game where cleverness at posturing and evading responsibility has any value or even relevance. The buck stops there.

There is also NO indication that Obama knows the first thing about managing and delegating. This leads to the treatment of the Cabinet as political tree decorations, with the appointments themselves representing all that needs to be done in terms of effective governing. The tree looks pretty, so isn’t that enough? Most of his appointees show zero evidence of managerial experience and success. Most are the simplest of political hacks or personal acolytes. This is a recipe for guaranteed mismanagement and out-of-control agency activity; chaos, in other words.”

Obama’s performance in the British Petroleum oil-rig catastrophe has been embarrassingly and infuriatingly inept. Let’s stipulate that everyone knows that a President doesn’t personally cause these kinds of problems and isn’t expected to personally put on the scuba gear and go fix it. But leadership and competence and professionalism means that a CEO quickly sizes up the importance of a problem, is actively engaged in making sure the best possible people are working to solve it, monitors progress and demands results, and demonstrates a well-attuned ear to any trust or confidence dimensions of the problem that need attention. S/he is genuinely concerned, because s/he understands the seriousness of the problem, and works as much behind the scenes as in front of the cameras in order to solve it.

Obama has failed as a CEO in every one of these dimensions. The record is undeniable that neither he nor his administration has been on top of this ‘from Day One”; they don’t appear to be on top of it even now. One gets the impression the entire Obama effort is focused on the cameras and not on the substance. The visibility and comments of Obama have been stilted, insincere, and without energy or focus. His feigned concern and scripted condolences for the families of the 11 people killed in the original explosion was and is deeply offensive.

As we wrote in January 2009:

”The office of the Presidency is not a game where cleverness at posturing and evading responsibility has any value or even relevance. The buck stops there. “

The most obnoxious aspect of Obama’s performance is his perpetual politicking of every dimension of the problem. The administration starts with the comment about having its “boot on the neck” of British Petroleum, which sounds like a quote taken from some juvenile Hollywood script about evil corporations. It then proceeds to an appointment of a panel of national experts on deepwater drilling to monitor what is going on, whereupon one of the experts is removed after having been found to have blogged about topics utterly irrelevant to the panel’s work but deemed politically incorrect by this administration. And of course along the way there have been ritual attempts to blame everything on the Bush administration, even though the rig in question was specifically green-lighted by the Obama administration.

This just isn’t what the American people want to see in their President. They will tolerate a certain amount of political spinning after the problem is solved, but while oil is washing up on the Gulf’s shores, they’d rather see action to stop it, not more finger-pointing and palms-to-the-ceiling speeches lamenting it.

Obama has no idea how inept he is showing himself to be. He has no idea how diminished he is in the eyes of the American people. Axelrod may think just a few more choreographed teleprompter talks will fix everything, but ultimately, substance and competence can’t be faked. Obama inflamed passions by the corruption that accompanied the healthcare bill and the utterly contrived controversy over the Arizona immigration law. The oil rig disaster completes a sort of trifecta of public disgust built now on incompetence on top of arrogance on top of deceit. (No telling what the truth about Joe Sestak will ultimately add to the mix).

Obama would be fired as President today if it were up to the American people. And as we keep saying, this situation is more perilous for Obama than he realizes. When the American people are this far turned against a President, he may think the remainder of his term is a sure thing. But when maniac-partisan James Carville goes into an anti-Obama rant over the oil-rig disaster, less visible Democrats and certainly Clinton loyalists take notice. The Obama-as-sinking-ship metaphor isn’t far behind, and the deserter rats can get nasty.

Paul Gable

May 28, 2010