Oval Office Signs

The following signs were conspicuously displayed on the White House’s Oval Office desk during the terms of the following presidents;

Harry S. Truman                  “The buck stops here”

Dwight D. Eisenhower        “Interstate highways start here”

John F. Kennedy                 “Don’t fear the bear”

Lyndon B. Johnson             “Viet Nam starts here”

Richard M. Nixon               “The muck starts here”

Gerald Ford                          “The pardon starts in the Rose Garden”

Jimmy Carter                       “Buck teeth star here”

George H.W. Bush              “Iraq stops there”

Bill Clinton                          “The suck starts here”

George W. Bush                  “WMDs won’t drop here”

Barack Obama                    “Let me be clear" [You can …]

     

Empty Cabinet

There is a very distressing undertone that has emerged from revelations surrounding the three scandals that are currently percolating in the Obama administration … the Benghazi scandal, the IRS profiling scandal, and the Associated Press wiretapping scandal.  It seems that, in all three instances, President Obama is a bystander to these events.  He either is seen handing things off to subordinates and then disappearing into the shadows … or he first reads about these scandals in the national media.  Distressing … Does he not have a process in place where these things are brought forward for his management attention?  And then attended to before they hit the national media?

I recently heard a Pontius Pilate analogy used for our President … in that he always has that basin of water handy with which he can wash his hands of any responsibility.  President Truman famously said, “The buck stops here.”  President Obama seems to say, “The buck stops I know not where.”  The upcoming implementation of Obamacare has been described as a train wreck.  Does this not concern our President?  Is he holding cabinet meetings to try to avert this disaster?  Or is he shooting hoops … or playing golf … or holding a fund raiser … or planning his next vacation?  Is he just another empty suit?

I recognize that Obama has been often criticized for his lack of leadership skills (much more so of late).  And it is not that he doesn’t have a plethora of advisers and Czars.  But his handling (or lack thereof) of these recent scandals leads me to concur that he is sorely lacking in critical management skills.  When was the last time he held a cabinet meeting?  Or held a meeting of any type that was not a photo op … or which resulted in anything substantive or beneficial for our country’s governance?  President Andrew Jackson had his Kitchen Cabinet.  President Obama has his Empty Cabinet.

Afterward:  And that Chicago thug and Obama consigliere, David Axelrod, has an explanation for President Obama's management incompetence ... see: National Review Story.

After Afterward: Even Chris Mathews agrees with me ... see: Politico Story

The Buck Stops Here ... Kinda

Just in time to provide her boss some political cover in tonight's debate, Hillary Clinton now says that it was her responsibility to provide the necessary security to the Benghazi consulate ... kinda.  Although she says that the buck stops with her, she does water down this noble gesture by saying it was her security people who actually made the decision not to respond to the request for more security ... that led to the terrorist attack and murder of our Libyan Ambassador and three other Americans there on September 11th.  See: Michelle Malkin Story ... particularly her hypertext link: delegated the blame.

This seeming noble act on Hillary's part tells me three things:
1) Despite her protestations to the contrary, Hillary Clinton still does have political ambitions regarding who will be the Democrat candidate for the Presidency in 2016.  (But, I would expect, between now and then, she will get a better hairdresser.)
2) She has some doubts as to whether her boss, Barack Obama, will prevail in the current election.  Otherwise Joe Biden would be the natural (if silly) choice to head the Democrat ticket then.
3) That master politician, Bill Clinton, is probably behind this posturing on Hillary's part.  This likely is because he seems to be obsessed with getting back into the White House ... even as the second fiddle.  Perhaps he had left some good cigars hidden in the Oval office?