Obama: I'm no bureaucrat

Lest there be any doubt, if Barack Obama emerges victorious in the Democratic presidential race, his message will bear no resemblance to the one pushed by the man his party picked as its nominee 20 years ago, Michael Dukakis.

In the 1988 campaign, Dukakis pitched himself as the consummate manager; the orchestrator -- as the state's governor -- of an economic recovery tagged the "Massachusetts Miracle"; a politician who was about competence, not vision. Come that November, Republican George H.W. Bush easily beat him.

In a surprisingly frank interview Monday with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama laid no claim to bureaucratic skills. Indeed, the headline for the article generated by the interview summed it up thusly: "Obama says voters don't want bureaucrat."

Meeting with the newspaper's editorial board, Obama said, "I have a pretty good sense of my strengths and my weaknesses. I am very good at teasing out from people who are smarter than me what the issues are and how we resolve them. I don’t think there is anybody in this race ...

... who can inspire the American people better than I can.... But I'm not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of "here's where the bureaucracy needs to go.' "

Take that, Michael Dukakis. And a certain senator from New York also might want to take notice. (We imagine, in fact, that this interview already is in the "clip and save" file at Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters.)

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[David Mathiasen]

I am a (retired) bureaucrat. In fact, most of my career was in the Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, which is about as close as a career person can get to the President. Obama is exactly right. His first book provided insight into his character; his second into his approach to policy. In reading the latter I applied every professional test I could to his positions, and he passed with flying colors. I have seen him twice in person, and the leadership quality is compelling.

We need his kind of leadership. There are plenty of able bureaucrats to follow through. And, if the quality of his campaign is any indication, he has no trouble figuring out who the good ones are.

DGM in Washington

[PK Bala]

The President of the United States is the keeper of the vision of the country in terms of who we are as a people and what our values are. He is the person who sets the overaching goals that stretch us as a nation to achieve the impossible and that helps us become a better people in the process. Visionary leaders like Barack Obama have the capability to drive entire nations to achieve things they would otherwise never have even dared to dream about.

The USA has no excuse to be totally independent today of oil or even coal as a source of energy, given the oil shocks of the early 70's. What has been missing is an overaching leadership in this country to right our ship. Given our almighty economy, we have no excuses for the holes we have created in medisave, medicare and health care. These are all manageable problems but as a society we decided that building bridges to nowhere; attacking countries and occupying them and then spending Billions of dollars a month to sustain that occupation; pandering to special interests that forces us to subsidize oil companies as they make record profits, subsidize drug companies by paying more for drugs than any other coutry in the world, are higher priorities.

We have lost our way. We dont need an effective manager who can shuffle this mess in a more organized way. We need a leader who can see past this mess and recognize that there has to be a better way. We need a leader who can set a vision for this country that harks back to the best days of America when the world viewed us as a FRIEND with no reservations that we will always be on the side of fairness and reasonableness.

We need a new kind of leadership and Barack Obama is the only one that is offering it.

[katharine]

Thank you DGM in Washington. May I suggest you contact the Obama campaign and offer your quote or do a spot to counter what is sure to be Clinton's next attack? Obama is showing us all that we cannot, dare not just stand on the sidelines. I have never supported a candidate before but have donated money and become a regular poster when I can, to outline Obama's policies and strengths. DGM, you have alot to offer- I hope you will consider contacting the campaign.