NYT: Obama personally overseeing U.S. intel’s Al Qaeda “kill list”

@Wordsmith:

Except on this story (Isn’t Greg not defending the president in his comment #1?)

Read his comment through again, Word. He uses cumbersome language, but his point is that he would rather the President make the final decision nearly always, or always, on such things. That in itself isn’t such a bad thing, but after several years worth of reading Greg’s comments about various topics related not only to Obama, but Bush, as well as other past Presidents, I believe that I can make a determination that Greg is more inclined to desire the President micro-manage all, or nearly all, of the Executive Branch’s actions.

In my experience, I’ve found that the best leaders are those who can rely on the decision making abilities of their subordinates without any qualms, who rarely overrule them, and can accept total responsibility for those decisions. Why? Because those leaders tend to surround themselves with the best people they can find, and allow them to do their jobs. The micro-managers, on the other hand, never truly trust anyone else but themselves, but are also very quick to point the finger of blame to anyone but themselves, even if they are the ones making the decisions. I’ve worked for both and know which type I like working for. As an aside, that is exactly why I left my last job. I couldn’t stand working for someone who wanted me to be both a robot, doing every thing, and only, what he directed me to do, as exactly as he told me to do them, and then turned around and blamed me for when things went wrong, even though he was the one who told me to do it that way. Sound like anyone we know in politics?

I worked, when in the Navy, for an excellent leader on the USS Enterprise. Capt. BJ McCullough was our Engineer, and the best person that I ever worked for. He could be very demanding of results, but he allowed a person working for him to grow into, and beyond, the job they were in by simply stating, in general terms and ideas, what he wanted, and then expecting his people to accomplish it, making the necessary decisions along the way to get the job done. He could do this because he knew that the people he had working for him in the various capacities were the best he could find. As such, people were also willing to go well above and beyond their required jobs. Myself and four other individuals once spent nearly 3 days straight awake and working in order to get a pump, needed for ‘Manuevering’ capabilities, taken apart and rebuilt so that the ship could pull into a “Liberty” port. The Engineer only directed us to rebuild the pump, and we had a week to do it. That’s it. All else was left to our discretion, knowledge, and ability to get the job done. When we finished the job, the “Well done” we received from the Engineer was the best accolades any of us could have received, or would want to receive. The Captain of the ship told him “Good Job”, and he corrected the Captain by directing the praise to myself and the other four individuals, in particular, and everyone who gave us support in any way, including the machinists in the Air Wing for use of their press. I have no doubt, none at all, that if we hadn’t gotten the job done in time that he would have accepted total responsibility for the failure.

Long story, I know, but I wanted to attempt an illustration of the difference in leadership that I prefer. Needless to say, Obama has displayed himself as the type that I detest. A micro-managing imbecile who won’t take responsibility for his missteps, but takes all the credit when things go well. He is a “me-firster” type of person and everything is all about Obama. And it all originates in the liberal/progressive ideology, and idea of how to teach children, or raise children. Everyone is praised, regardless of how well they did, everyone receives “participation” ribbons or trophies, their is no first place winner, hence their is no loser. This instills a high sense of self-import into children whose parents don’t, or can’t, override this, resulting in eventually young people who are all about themselves, who “know” that they are the best, and any failures surrounding them always are due to someone, or something else. Blame is placed on those surrounding them, or circumstances, and responsibility is never taken. When things go well, these type of people, as in Obama, tend to take all of the credit, even if they in actuality did nothing. And everything is about them. This is why Obama speaks using terms of “I”, “Me”, “My team”, “My WH”, “My Administration”, “My party”, etc., except when things don’t go well, or his way, and then everything is in terms of “those people”, “that party”, “circumstances beyond my/our control”.

I think liberal/progressives prefer Obama’s style because they prefer to be told when, how, and where to do things, without ever wondering about the why, and without having to make any hard decisions themselves while doing it. This is why someone like Greg can prefer that the President, Obama in this case, decide all, or nearly all, of everything the government does, and then defend the President’s “blame everyone else” attitude when things don’t go well.

For example, using this topic’s subject, if there were two terrorists to go after, but Obama decided to let one go and get the other one, and the one he let go committed an atrocious act of terrorism, say, at an American embassy, what do you think Obama would do? Who do you think he would blame for the failure to stop the act of terrorism? Do you think Obama would take responsibility for going after the wrong guy?

Read Greg’s comment in full, again. Yes, he said “President of the United States”, however, knowing his feelings on liberal/progressives and conservatives, do you honestly believe that he means anything other than Obama? Do you honestly believe he would say the same thing about, say, Bush, or Romney if elected? I don’t.