Is Obama lazy? (Updated)

American Thinker ^ | March 7, 2009 | Rick Moran

[Kaslin]

All we're getting is whispers from the press, of course, A raised eyebrow here, a sad shake of the head there. But the picture that is emerging of Barack Obama, the executive, is not very flattering if you look between the lines.

Jennifer Rubin:

Well, it's becoming obvious he's not really much of a manager, decider, legislation-craftsman, or supervisor. His vetting process is in shambles and key Treasury slots are still vacant. His Treasury Secretary is a classic under-performer and Obama encourages that tendency by talking about everything other than our immediate recovery needs. He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the legislating - and they've come up with an embarrassing stimulus and an omnibus spending-bill even Democrats aren't swallowing.

What does he like to do? Summits. These are in essence campaign events - faux town-halls where nary a discouraging word is heard and no real work is done. And he loves those campaign rallies around the country.

So if the report is accurate that others are crafting his political strategy (just like the Pelosi-Reid machine is drafting his legislation), it should should come as no surprise. George W. Bush was lambasted for poor management skills and excessive delegation. But that was nothing - Obama has delegated the entire task of governing. He will keep the campaigning for himself.

Ed Lasky:

Failure as a community organizer (at least he admits that, to some extent) :

Lazy as an attorney-dedicated to promoting himself:

Miner's firm specialized in civil rights litigation and in representing not-for-profits. "The 'game of law' irritated [Obama] more than fascinated him," Miner says. "There are people who just like the game. Barack didn't like the game."

Allison Davis, a former partner in Miner's firm (and the son of a prominent U. of C. professor), occupied an office next to Obama's at 14 West Erie Street. "He spent a lot of time working on his book [Dreams from My Father]," Davis recalls. "Some of my partners weren't happy with that, Barack sitting there with his keyboard on his lap and his feet up on the desk writing the book."

I am sure his colleagues, other lawyers, who actually had to work killer hours to pay his salaries, appreciated his work ethic.

(BTW, he kept getting extensions on the deadline to submit a manuscript, then he flew off to the South Pacific to "work on it")

Failure as a Senator: A habit of claiming credit for work he did  not do  :

After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a bipartisan group of senators burst out of the "President's Room," just off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy.

As the half-dozen senators -- including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. KennedySen.. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made a request common when Capitol Hill news conferences are in the offing: "Hey, guys, can I come along?" And when Obama went before the microphones, he was generous with his list of senators to congratulate -- a list that included himself.

"I want to cite Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, Ken Salazar, myself, Dick Durbin, Joe Lieberman . . . who've actually had to wake up early to try to hammer this stuff out," he said.

To Senate staff members, who had been arriving for 7 a.m. negotiating sessions for weeks, it was a galling moment. Those morning sessions had attracted just three to four senators a side, Sen.. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recalled, each deeply involved in the issue. Obama was not one of them. But in a presidential contest involving three sitting senators, embellishment of legislative records may be an inevitability, Specter said with a shrug.

Unlike governors, business leaders or vice presidents, senators -- the last to win the presidency was John F. Kennedy in 1960 -- are not executives. They cannot be held to account for the state of their states, their companies or their administrations. What they do have is the mark they leave on the nation's laws -- and in Obama's brief three-year tenure, as well as Sen.. Hillary Rodham Clinton's seven-year hitch, those marks are far from indelible.
(D-Mass.) -- headed to announce their plan, they met

And for being on  a Committee he was not on and doing work he did not do (again):

Barack Obama today boasted about a bill in "my committee,'' a committee on which he has no seat.

While speaking to the press in the Israeli town of Sderot, Obama mistakenly put the U.S. Senate banking committee on his resume, although the Illinois senator does not serve on the committee and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is the chairman.

The Republican National Committee distributed an e-mail pointing out Obama's mistake with a subject line of "Obama's Gaffe Machine Rolls Into Israel."

During the press conference, Obama said, "Just this past -- this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon."

Anyone see a pattern here? People overestimated him and he woefully undelivers-time and time again. No wonder he picked Geithner.

Moran's take:

Ed's evidence is compelling. I would add that during the early stages of the campaign, his "keepers of the body" - probably Axelrod at that point - overextended the candidate. His gaffes about 10,000 dead in a Kansas tornado came at the end of a long day of campaigning. They never made the same mistake again and limited his access to the press and reduced the number of events per day. This would seem to indicate the president doesn't have much stamina.

But he will continue to get a pass on this from the press unless the economy goes into free fall and still nothing much has been done.

UPDATE

Ed Lasky adds:

One more aspect of his lax work ethic is that he did not accomplish much as a State Senator (not just his habit of voting present) but also the fact that his so-called accomplishments as a state senator were fictitious .  Illinois Senate State President Emil Jones tacked his name onto bills that other people did the lifting on so that Jones, in Obama's own words, could make Obama a  U.S. Senator. 

In the State Senate, Jones did something even more important for Obama. He pushed him forward as the key sponsor of some of the Party's most important legislation, even though the move did not sit well with some colleagues who had plugged away in the minority on bills that Obama now championed as part of the majority. "Because he had been in the minority, Barack didn't have a legislative record to run on, and there was a buildup of all these great ideas that the Republicans kept in the rules committee when they were in the majority," Burns said. "Jones basically gave Obama the space to do what Obama wanted to do. Emil made it clear to people that it would be good for them."

"You have the power to make a United States senator," he told Emil Jones in 2003.

[lonestar]

later

[Theodore R.]

I think he is very much lazy. One benefit of Oprah’s Choice is that he will show that one does not have to work hard to be a “great president”. But, then, liberals always berated Coolidge for sleeping too much. Being president is really just making choices that come across the desk. He will find, I believe, that he has all the time in the world to do what he wants to pursue, which is the unraveling of the American fabric. I don’t think though the American people will ever catch on to the scam.

[Theodore R.]

Still, he’s lazy compared to “workaholic” presidents.

[Theodore R.]

It may be way beyond four years. The American people are patient and will wait a long time for the proverbial “check in the mail”.

[Canedawg]

I guess he’s just a “typical black person”.

;-)

[PigRigger]

"He as well as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter should have never been President of the United States. They are clearly not up to the task as none of them cared a flip about America or it’s people."

At least Clinton was pragmatic with his approach to goeverning....he new on many occasions when to concede to more conservative agendas....he was far from an ideologe....

On the other hand....Obama is true believer....and come hell or high water he will attempt to push through his agenda believing it is what is right....regardless of what the polls say.....and he has a radical congress to support him....

...as for Carter....he really was just a dumbass....in way over his head....

[Polarik]

Seem like this President nominated moe tax cheats for positions in his Administration than honest taxpayers.

[thirst4truth]

I heard someone say the other day, No one ever told him NO!

Think about that? His Mom who felt guilty, his grandparents that took up the slack of his absent Mom, then the college he went to said, Yes, no one knows why, then the Harvard Law review, the state senate, the US senate and now, un freaking believable!!!!!!!

[norwaypinesavage]

"so we are now supposed to believe him when he says to buy stocks? How in the hell does he know?"

He has been studying those "Profit/Earnings Ratios" now for long enough to advise you on what to buy. He's a quick learner, you know. I just can't figure out why they are always 1:1.

[adorno]

A lot about his work ethic was known before he ran for president. We also heard a lot about his padding of his "resume" with fictitious accomplishments.

However, one thing he did not have to lie about was the color of his skin. One look at him and most people concluded that he either appeared to be black or was black. Thus, his most significant accomplishment was being born black. He also sounded good when reading from a scripted speech, preferably when it was in front of him in a teleprompter. Looking back, people can only conclude that the most important ingredients that gave Obama the winning recipe towards winning the election were his skin color and his ability to sound good while reading from a script. For both of those ingredients, he dint' have to work at all.

So, a man with no experience to speak of and no real accomplishments in life got elected to the highest office in the world. He never worked very hard to attain that position. All he needed was the color of his skin and his voice. Now, he'll never have to work hard again in his life. As president, he'll be able to retire after four years with a hefty pension and benefits. Beyond the presidency, he'll continue to use his skin and voice to rake in the millions reading from a teleprompter. Nice "work" if you can get it.

[Kaslin]

I used to work at a Holiday Inn, and there was one employee who, when she came to work on Sunday always complained that she was “so tired” when she came to work on Sunday morning. Needless to say, she was African American and went out partying Saturday and stayed out until way after midnight

[Texas_shutterbug]

NEEDLESS TO SAY?

"Needless to say, she was African American and went out partying Saturday and stayed out until way after midnight."

And folks here say there's no racism on this board. ROFLMASSo

[Kaslin]

I didn’t mean it as racism

[Texas_shutterbug]

Racists rarely mean it as racism - needless to say.

[roses of sharon]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/03/maybe_we_should_schedule_some.html

Weren’t we force fed by the media images of the young and vigorous Obama (stuffing sandbags along a swollen river-after which, volunteers complained he was gumming up their work for a photo op; riding his bike while wearing cool shades, shooting hoops)? Weren’t we also assaulted images of John McCain that insulted our senior citizens? Out of touch, unable to use a Blackberry, stiff (because of war wounds he could not life his arms)?
Since he cannot choose good people to oversee the government (see Geithner, see scandals over his Cabinet appointments) what are we left with as a President? A man who never ran anything in his life. A man with no business experience. A man who was a student and then an academic for much of his life, who whiled away his time as a part-time state senator and part-time academic. Where oh where is the real world experience? Has he ever experienced the responsibilities of working for someone else-not the amorphous voter bloc who in Illinois will vote in Democrats almost by rote, but a boss who demands performance? Has anyone ever held him to any standards of competence? Has anyone ever held him up to any sensible standards of performance? Has he ever had to demand performance of anyone? We are talking a government employee here. A person who was never asked to produce that nasty word-a profit.

Well, profits are what are used to employ people. The alternative is to tax people to shift wealth to others. That is what we are getting.
Since he won’t release his college or law school transcripts, we don’t even know how good of a student he was during his academic “career”. He has shown very little comprehension of the law-and recall, he went to Harvard Law School and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. We were constantly reminded of the sheepskins during the campaign but very few people ever looked beyond these degrees to discover that he actually has a pattern of failing to understand the law -something the media constantly attacked the Bush Administration over (see Barack Obama, Legal Scholar ).

[roses of sharon]

Ignore the sniveling race-baiters......their messiah, along with his friends, family, and preacher, are racist to the core.

And proud of it.

[Texas_shutterbug]

And people wonder why conservatism isn't making any traction?

eyes rolling The racists and women haters in this party are largely responsible for its demise.

[Kaslin]

I am not a racist, you jerk. Get this through your pea-sized brain

[Kaslin]

And get off my thread

[Kaslin]

Yeah, and you know they always accuse others of the exact thing they are doing and that goes for the 0 also.