President Barack Obama’s penchant for voting “present” was all but ignored by many in the media when he ran for president in 2008. Now newly leaked memos from within the White House are bringing that subject new – and for Barack Obama, very unwanted attention.
Mickey Kaus of the Daily Caller comes right and asks – What does he (Obama) do all day? Kaus spent a bit of time looking over a just-published piece by Ryan Lizza titled The Obama Memos. While Lizza attempted to somewhat soften the reflection those memos made of a rather disinterested and at times, utterly out of touch Barack Obama – Kaus was having none of it:
What does he do all day? Are you impressed with the image of Obama-at-work left by Ryan Lizza’s “Obama Memos” piece in the New Yorker? The President’s decision-making method–at least as described in the piece–seems to consist mainly of checking boxes on memos his aides have written for him.
…He’s presented a plan for a watered-down tax on multinationals or a very watered down tax. He writes “worth discussing.”
…Finally, he’s presented with a classic three-box-con memo–two extreme boxes (big new jobs package, big new deficit package) and a safer middle box (“smaller, more symbolic” deficit efforts), a matrix clearly designed to get him to choose the middle option. He chooses the middle option.
…I’m sure Obama is smarter than this. He can’t be an executive who spends his days checking boxes, accepting the choices presented by his aides, never reaching outside them through unconventional channels or reaching unconventional thinkers, never throwing over the framework with which he is presented.
I’m sure of it, but I can’t find much evidence for it in Lizza’s piece. The aides who leaked him the memos didn’t do Obama any favors.
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