Obama campaign team lousy at governing

It turns out that BHO's winning campaign team is a disaster at governing. Any sentient being could tell that bomb thrower Rahm Emmanuel, who famously sent a fish wrapped in paper to a reporter he disliked, would be a catastrophe in the high process, low profile chief of staff role. Anyone except someone like BHO who had absolutely no experience managing anything or anyone of substance. As Edward Luce at the FT explains:

Pundits, Democratic lawmakers and opinion pollsters offer a smorgasbord of reasons – from Mr Obama’s decision to devote his first year in office to healthcare reform, to the president’s inability to convince voters he can “feel their [economic] pain”, to the apparent ungovernability of today’s Washington. All may indeed have contributed to the quandary in which Mr Obama finds himself. But those around him have a more specific diagnosis – and one that is striking in its uniformity. The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing, they say.

I particularly love the MSM condescendion on Ronald Reagan in the same piece.

The Hollywood touch

Political scientists credit Ronald Reagan with having managed the best transition from campaigning to governing when he moved to the White House in 1981. While lacking in intellectual skills, Reagan was often a shrewd judge of character. Following his victory in a bitter primary campaign with George H.W. Bush in 1980, Reagan promptly hired his defeated opponent’s campaign manager, James Baker, to be his first chief of staff. Understated but authoritative, Mr Baker is considered one of the most effective performers in that role, to which he brought a good managerial background and an ability to play honest broker.

So let me get this straight: the intellectual nullity, RR managed the most successful transition from campaigning to governing because he was a shrewd judge of character (perhaps from his 8 years in Sacramento?) while the Intellectual "giant" BHO is a flailing failure because he doesn't understand character, didn't know who to hire, took the wrong advice and generally behaved like a sophomoric boob. Hmm - A great endorsement for "intellectuals".