As we all search for reasons that we’re in this economic mess right now, one obvious solution has evaded notice, I think. Until now.
In this morning’s New York Times, Cheryl Gay Stolberg offers us a possible answer. Up until now, George W. Bush, our first MBA President, a graduate of the august Harvard Business School, not to mention Yale, has been on the sidelines. Obviously, he’s been doing other things, like going on international junkets more than half a dozen times, or locked up in meetings engaging on other important issues, presumably.
“For a man who came into office as the nation’s first M.B.A. president,” Ms. Stolberg writes, “Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on voters’ minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Mr. Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.
“He’s over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what’s in their pocketbooks,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan in his second term. “He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas.”
The idea that the President is out of touch may seem implausible to those who have come to expect Mr. Bush’s traditional level of insight, zeal and impartial sense of balance on key matters of state. And it is true, unfortunately, that Crawford’s favorite resident did recently evince shock at the current price of a gallon of gasoline, much as his father failed to recognize a state-of-the-art supermarket scanner lo those many years ago.
Those who make too much of this kind of thing are missing the point, however. The Bushes, perhaps, are not the best multi-taskers in the world. But when they train their laser focus on something, stuff definitely happens.
Given the way things are going, it just might be time for the President to swing into action, bringing the kind of leadership to this matter for which he has become justly renowned worldwide.
… on the other hand… things are ALL that bad yet, are they? I mean… they could still get worse, right?…
Laissez-faire, Mr. President! That’s the ticket!