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Brain -> RE: Who is better - Obama or Bush? (6/18/2010 2:13:21 PM)
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What criteria do you use to determine what makes a good President?
1. Who do you believe is a better President - George W. Bush or Barack Obama?
2. What criteria do you use to determine what makes a good President?
3. What specific examples do you have to demonstrate that one person meets those criteria while the other does not?
4. Do you think that either Bush or Obama is an excellent President?
5. Do you think that either Bush or Obama is a horrible President?
1. Who do you believe is a better President - George W. Bush or Barack Obama?
Obama
2. What criteria do you use to determine what makes a good President?
Six criteria for his analysis: i) Public communication
ii) organizational capacity iii) political skill, iv) vision, v) cognitive style, and vi) emotional intelligence.
3. What specific examples do you have to demonstrate that one person meets those criteria while the other does not?
i) Public communication:
Not All Obama News Conferences Made the Same - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
But add up all the press availabilities Mr. Obama has done, including abbreviated sessions with foreign leaders, and some solo news conferences at home and abroad, and the number of press events he's done since taking office climbs to 49.
During the same period of time in his presidency, George W. Bush took part in a total of 33 press availabilities of all varieties of which five were formal, solo White House news conferences. Only one was an evening event in prime time. The others were daytime sessions lasting about half an hour.
Besides press conferences, Mr. Obama has also sat for 190 interviews with members of the press, far more than any of his recent predecessors during their first 16 months in office.
The numbers reveal that Mr. Obama finds news conferences less appealing a format for conveying his views than one-on-one interviews.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006076-503544.html
ii) Organizational capacity
This, of course, is true, but this piece and others like it focus on the President and his approach to management and fail to discuss the far more critical issue of the now three decade long attack on federal government organizational capacity. Ronald Reagan began the process of deconstructing the federal government's capacity. This effort to "starve the beast" and destroy federal capacity was reversed during the Clinton era as Vice President Gore led a well intentioned effort to reinvent government, but the forces of disintegration picked up renewed momentum during the Bush years of 2001-2009. During the Presidency of Bush the latter, federal agencies that needed to build capacity for a new task were required to demonstrate that the capacity could not be found and purchased in the private sector. The underlying assumption of federal management during the Bush Presidency was that government was the enemy and the private sector was the great repository of management competence in America…
It would be helpful if the President showed more leadership on the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf. It is absolutely essential that he focus on the management of the organizations responsible for policing and protecting our environment, workplaces, and economy. However, the reconstruction of organizational capacity within the federal government will take many years, substantial resources and incredible persistence. It will also require an ideological cease fire that would return the "make or buy decision" to the purview of government managers. Can we do it? I seem to remember the answer to that question.....oh yeah.... "yes we can."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/changing-obamas-managemen_b_602787.html
iii) political skill
It was all bells and whistles, a presidential dog and pony show. It is becoming more and more plausible that President Obama is President Bush’s opposite. President Bush was all guts but no brains whereas Obama appears to be all brains but no guts. Either way, the American people are left in a most precarious predicament.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/opinion-left-obama-vs-bush/blog-351353/
iv) vision
At Least Bush had a "Vision" - CBS News
17 May 2010 ... At a joint news conference, Obama insisted that “perceived tensions” between the two men had .... Whatever vision Bush had was a disaster
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/17/opinion/main6490751.shtml
v) Cognitive style
Again, Obama and Bush provide good contrasts here. Obama is cerebral and thoughtful, considering opposing viewpoints and available evidence before making a decision. His recent care in coming to a decision on a future direction for the U.S. military in Afghanistan is an example of this being a potential strength or weakness. Bush was a famed "gut thinker," something that served him well in connecting to the public, but let him down dangerously in his rush to war with Iraq.
http://ussc.edu.au/blogs/Six-Steps-to-Successful-Leadership-Professor-Fred-Greenstein-rates-the-Obama-Presidency
vi) Emotional Intelligence.
Obama, says Greenstein, is even-tempered and detached, often to his advantage; he has made few major mistakes, whether as a candidate or a president. His coolness is occasionally a liability, however, for instance, in his perceived lack of urgency in realising his agenda. Like Bush, Obama was less emotionally controlled in his younger days. Both have spoken of lacking in direction when they were younger, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Greenstein gives Bill Clinton as an example of a President whose lack of emotional control allowed his polticial agenda to come off track; his dalliances with interns waylaid susbtantial portions of his Presidency.
http://ussc.edu.au/blogs/Six-Steps-to-Successful-Leadership-Professor-Fred-Greenstein-rates-the-Obama-Presidency
4. Do you think that either Bush or Obama is an excellent President?
Obama is better than Bush but Obama is far from excellent and has been very disappointing.
Left-Wing Icon Daniel Ellsberg: 'Obama Deceives the Public' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,699677,00.html
5. Do you think that either Bush or Obama is a horrible President?
Seven most horrible things about Bush's presidency Rex Nutting - MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The remarkable thing about President George W. Bush wasn't that he was a horrible chief executive; it's that he was horrible in so many ways.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/seven-most-horrible-things-about-bushs
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