Time to Clean House, the White House that Is
By Michael Boyajian
Frank Rich in Sunday’s New York Times questions President Obama’s late delivery of his public face on major issues not his actual intent to do good. Hence the tardiness to appear engaged with the BP spill whereas a series of press conferences early on would have given the president the appearance of being on top of the crisis.
Now the president has enough on his plate right now without having to take on the task of scheduling his press conferences. That is why successful managers delegate duties. And in this case the scheduling duty belongs to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Emanuel’s job performance when it comes to carrying out duties like this has been a miserable failure going back to the battle over health care and moving forward from there. This so called lion has pretty much been AWOL from his duties for the first year and half of the administration’s term. In fact most of the administration’s problems can be traced back to Emanuel’s ineffectiveness. He seems too much a municipal politician incapable of playing major league ball on the federal field.
Now we cannot recall and most likely do not want to vote out President Obama but we can save his presidency by removing Emanuel and replacing him with someone who is up to the task. I cannot name a singular person to carry out this task but I can tell you where to look for that person. I would begin by recruiting from with the staff of Senator Chuck Schumer or the former senate staff of Hillary Clinton. Both these political leaders have and had very successful terms running up huge re-election margins thanks to superb staff leadership.
The time to act is now. The ship of state has been steered into a field of icebergs and Emanuel doesn’t have the skill to maneuver us safely through these treacherous waters. It is time to bring in a new captain. An Admiral Nimitz is needed now for a full court press to the mid-term elections.
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