Posted on 02/23/2009 2:29:15 PM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Did we elect a president—or hire some kind of Stuart Smalley-like facilitator of a national sensitivity-cum-corporate-motivation session?
Below you’ll find an unexpurgated excerpt from Pres. Obama’s closing remarks at today’s so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Summit.” Really. He actually said this. Not a parody. Read it and try to imagine a leader like Lincoln, Churchill, Reagan . . . Bush—in a billion years—sounding like this in a time of national crisis.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Now, I want to make sure that the conversation doesn’t end when we go home today. We’ve got a lot of hard choices to make, we need to build off this afternoon’s conversation and work together to forge a consensus. So, one of the things that I’m hoping to do, is that my team–each of whom were taking copious notes during the course of these respective break-out sessions–will issue a report, or a summary of the conversation. It will be distributed to each of the participants in those respective discussions. We will then ask for concrete ideas either about substance or process, and we will ask that you get those back so that we can then issue a final report coming out of this conversation in 30 days. And I think somebody just dubbed it “the fiscal sustainability project.” So, that’s as good of a name as any.
Agreed. Pretty much any name works for this pathetic farrago. The President of the United States of America wasn’t done, though . . .
View video.
(Excerpt) Read more at finkelblog.com ...
The Stuart Smalley president ping to Today show list. Read it and weep for our country.
And so we are very much looking forward to hearing from your ideas both about process and about substance.
What a boob. He's supposed to be a "great orator?"
I heard the comments and harkened back to a college poli sci class. Governing by circle jerks. Surreal...
Really quite unbelievable.
It puts me in mind of those corporate retreats convened to draft the company “mission statement.”
No one ever simply said the aim of this company is to provide the customer a good product at good value and to make money for the shareholder.
Doesn’t matter if we achieve anything, so long as there’s a consensus ;-)
And let’s not forget: every member of the president’s team was taking copious notes—and there’s going to be a continuous loop! Don’t we all feel much better, now?
You’re making me laugh and cry at the same time.
Oh, and weren’t those “break-out sessions” wonderful?
More proof that, without a teleprompter, the Obamoron is a blithering idiot.
I didn’t bother with the video, the transcript was all I could handle.
LOL. It comes as close to an SNL skit as anything I have ever seen, so the Stuart Smalley thing is perfect.
I worked for 30 years in the federal bureaucracy (Department of Defense) and I went through countless sessions like this one today, and needless to say, they never accomplished anything. Reminds me of the old “Organizational Effectiveness” crap the military got rid of in the late 80’s.
We’re in big trouble, people!
Aww. He looks like he needs a hug, too ;-)
The results of this type of talk and meeting do not go anywhere.
The reason they don't ever produce results is because the course of the company agenda had already been set. Ideas that could have had some positive outcome but were against the direction of the preset course of action were rejected.
"Kiss Butt" ideas that were in line with what the outcome was going to be were accepted and the employee(s) praised and promoted.
The company went Bankrupt!
“The company went Bankrupt!”
Yes, but it was a warm-’n-fuzzy bankruptcy and everyone felt affirmed and self-actualized ;-)
Yeah, that’s pretty much standard facilitator fare. That’s what it means to lead today.
I’m sure Stalin is laughing in hell right now.
Just as long as there were no hurt feelings.
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