Just what is a czar anyway? And I am not talking about the Russian royal family. A czar is essentially a presidential advisor. Take a moment to think about that. Why does President Obama need to appoint 32, give or take, czars in his administration? Could it be that he really, really needs a lot of advising?
In the campaign, the main stream media, somehow diverted the attention away from Obama’s glaring lack of experience as the Presidential candidate and put all their focus on Sarah Palin’s “lack of experience.” Sarah Palin had more executive experience as a sitting governor and I emphasize executive experience, than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.
But the media tut-tutted, and said “it’s only Alaska,” as for her mayoral experience, “it was a very small town.” When Obama slipped his teleprompter and tried to claim he was running a very large organization, his campaign, it was laughable. But don’t worry, he had Joe Biden to lean on. I feel better.
Presidents and The Experience They Brought With Them
Let’s take a look back at past elected presidents and the executive experience they brought to office:
- George W. Bush — Governor of Texas
- Bill Clinton — Governor of Arkansas
- George H. W. Bush — Vice President of the United States, Head of the CIA
- Ronald Reagan — Governor of California
- Jimmy Carter — Governor of Georgia
- Richard Nixon — Vice President of the United States
- Lyndon Johnson — Vice President of the United States
- John F. Kennedy — None. He was a legislator and his inexperience nearly got us annihilated with the Cuban Missile Crisis, following the Bay of Pigs, and an embarrassing showdown with Khrushchev
- Dwight D. Eisenhower — Five star general in command of all Allied Forces in Europe in World War II
- Harry Truman — Vice President of the United States
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — Governor of New York , Secretary of the Navy
- Herbert Hoover — Secretary of Commerce
- Calvin Coolidge — Vice President of the United States, Governor of Massachusetts
- Warren G. Harding — Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
- Woodrow Wilson — Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University
- William Howard Taft – Secretary of War
- Theodore Roosevelt — Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Legislators Versus Executives
So, from the beginning of the 20th Century until the election of Barack Obama, only once has a president with only legislative experience been elected, John F. Kennedy. Nikita Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy’s inexperience in their first summit in Vienna, and then there was the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the attempted overthrow of Castro. On top of those two building blocks we got the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought us closer than we have ever been to thermonuclear obliteration.
The Eternal Campaign
President Obama is no different. He has the least experience of any president since 1900. He effectively was only a United States Senator for two years, as he was busy campaigning for the next two years and resigned his last two years after being elected president. So what does he do? He does what he is comfortable doing and what he is good at, campaigning. He has held more press conferences in six months than his predecessor did in eight years. Who is running the show while Obama is running around? Is it Nancy Pelosi? Rahm Emmanual? His programs are falling apart. The stimulus isn’t working and more Americans say that it has hurt the economy rather than helped it (31%-25%) and that the rest of it should be canceled. His cap and trade plan is opposed by most Americans (56%) who don’t want to pay more in taxes to fight global warming. His government takeover of our health care is opposed by most Americans (53%-44%) and yet he presses on, figuring that with enough campaigning the American people will be won over.
This may be a long slog, waiting for 2012 and hoping our country does not get destroyed by all the power grabbing characters in Congress, who don’t care a whit about us, only about increasing the powerful control they have over our lives. We have the fight of our lives on our hands preventing the taking of our liberties.
