President-Elect Obama has little time to savor his historic victory and has to start addressing the challenges he stressed last night with a swift and sure transition from the paralyzed government now in place.
The names will be important, but decisiveness without delay would help lay to rest the doubts raised about his inexperience during the campaign and reassure an American public on the edge of panic about the economy.
Leon Panetta, the former White House chief of staff who has been advising his transition team, says, "You better damn well do the tough stuff up front, because if you think you can delay the tough decisions and tiptoe past the graveyard, you’re in for a lot of trouble. Make the decisions that involve pain and sacrifice up front.”
The rumors are that Obama will start by naming Rep. Rahm Emanuel, with experience in the Clinton White House as his chief of staff this week and will go on quickly to appoint future cabinet members.
In today's political climate, a new Treasury Secretary will be as critical as the choices for State and Defense, and whoever it is and the President-Elect will have to get involved in the financial crisis long before Obama raises his hand and takes the oath on January 20th.
Showing posts with label decision-making. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decision-making. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
A Look Into Obama's Mind
In unearthing the syllabus and assignments for his seminar in "Current Issues in Racism and the Law" during 12 years of teaching at the University of Chicago, the New York Times offers a preview of how Barack Obama's mind might work in the Oval Office.
For that complex and controversial subject, Obama improvised his own textbook, with key cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois and Malcolm X as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork.
Amid the historical horrors of slavery and lynchings, students recall, Obama made room for discussing the values and culture that Americans of all races grow up sharing, citing his wife, Michelle, a black woman, who loved “The Brady Bunch” so much that she could identify every episode by its opening scenes.
But perhaps most to the point of how a President Obama would conduct his administration's approach to problem solving may be found in his instructions to students for preparing their term papers:
"What I want to see is that you are fully engaged with an issue, and that you've broken some sweat trying to figure out the problem in all it wonderful complexity.
"More specifically, I'll be looking for: a focused, tightly crafted argument, and analytic rigor in working through the legal or policy problems raised by your argument; a thorough examination of the diversity of opinion that exists on the issue or theme; a willingness, after having looked at the various facets of the topic, to take a stand and offer concrete proposals or approaches to the problem."
That sounds like the essence of what he would telling the people he picks to help him run the country. It certainly would be a change from what we have now.
For that complex and controversial subject, Obama improvised his own textbook, with key cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois and Malcolm X as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork.
Amid the historical horrors of slavery and lynchings, students recall, Obama made room for discussing the values and culture that Americans of all races grow up sharing, citing his wife, Michelle, a black woman, who loved “The Brady Bunch” so much that she could identify every episode by its opening scenes.
But perhaps most to the point of how a President Obama would conduct his administration's approach to problem solving may be found in his instructions to students for preparing their term papers:
"What I want to see is that you are fully engaged with an issue, and that you've broken some sweat trying to figure out the problem in all it wonderful complexity.
"More specifically, I'll be looking for: a focused, tightly crafted argument, and analytic rigor in working through the legal or policy problems raised by your argument; a thorough examination of the diversity of opinion that exists on the issue or theme; a willingness, after having looked at the various facets of the topic, to take a stand and offer concrete proposals or approaches to the problem."
That sounds like the essence of what he would telling the people he picks to help him run the country. It certainly would be a change from what we have now.
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