We do not have an Ebola epidemic, and there is no reason for anyone to panic. But we do have a serious problem that has the potential to get much worse, and if it’s the federal government we’re going to trust to “manage the crisis” so to speak, then we absolutely need to demand competent leadership from the executive branch.
That is clearly not what we’re getting, and to understand why, you really need to look at the way President Obama thinks about what it means to lead.
His latest move was to appoint Ron Klain – a Democrat political operative with no experience dealing in diseases of any kind – as the “czar” in charge of coordinating the Ebola response. Why would he make such a move? He would make such a move because Obama doesn’t understand anything about selecting the right people for a job and charging them with working on the right problems and achieving the right results.
Let’s remember that Obama was elected for three reasons, and none of them had anything to do with competence in executive leadership: 1. He was highly regarded at the time (not nearly as much now) as a great orator; 2. People felt good about the “historic” significance of electing the first black president; 3. The economic meltdown of 2008 and fatigue over the Iraq War had people ready to go in a different direction after eight years of a Republican administration.
What all three have in common is that they were more or less about how people felt, not about any clear-eyed assessment of Obama’s ability to lead. He seemed to have personal qualities that made certain people feel inspired or hopeful, but he had no record or experience to suggest he was capable of doing the things people hoped he would do.
We have seen throughout his presidency that he lacks those capabilities, and worse, he doesn’t seem capable of learning from his mistakes. Rarely has that been on display more fully than since the Ebola problem reared its head.
First he assured us that the Centers for Disease Controls had everything under control. As we learned of health care workers contracting the virus amidst insufficient safety protocols, it became clear that this was not the case. Then he refused to institute a travel ban to the nations where Ebola absolutely is a crisis, insisting that the “experts” he consults tell him this would be less effective than the things we’re already doing. (How could anything be less effective than what we’re doing now?) As Rob told you the other day, CDC director Tom Frieden offered the rationale that such a travel ban would hurt the economies of the African nations in question, as if that should be our priority under the circumstances.
The African nations have imposed travel bans of their own. There is no reason we should consider the option off the table.
Then Obama mused for several days that maybe he should appoint a czar to coordinate the effort, which is curious considering that he has an acting surgeon general that you’d think would be the natural leader for such an effort. (And what about the 30-some other “czars” Obama appointed at the beginning of his administration? How have they made anything better?)
Finally he appoints a political operative who has never done anything in the field of health, but is famous for engaging in partisan rhetoric on Twitter.
The pattern here? Obama doesn’t really know how to manage, but he thinks he knows how to look like he’s in charge. Make statements that appear to re-assure everybody. Announce that you’re putting someone in charge. See? Everything’s under control.
That, of course, is not how leadership works at all. I told you at the beginning of Obama’s presidency that you can’t manage more than 60 people reporting directly to you, which is the way he set up the executive branch structure. In truth, he wasn’t trying to manage them so much as he was trying to pawn off responsibility on them. “Hey, I appointed someone to do that!”
Yes you did, but making sure they do it right is still your responsibility. You can’t do that if you don’t appoint the right people and don’t know how to hold people responsible for results.
This episode might lead us to question our deep-seated instinct to turn to the federal government’s leadership every time there is a crisis. Just because it is big and has lots of people and money (or at least borrowing capacity) doesn’t mean it will necessarily do the job well. The culture of the federal government is to try hard to look in charge, not to actually get results. And that has never been more true than under a president we elected in part because he looked like we would like a leader to look – not because he actually is one.
