Campaigning or Governing?

Running a campaign is far different than governing a nation. Senator Hillary Clinton told Americans that on-the-job training was dangerous and unacceptable. Experience matters. Senator Obama rejected the "experience factor" and retorted that Americans wanted "good judgment" in their elected officials.

Within two weeks of being inaugurated Commander-in-Chief, President Obama is witnessing colossal blunders out of the gate. Dashcle, Killifer, Geithner, and Hilda Solis have embarassingly failed to pay back taxes in previous years. Bill Richardson bowed out of his nomination for Commerce Secretary. Serious conflict of interests in New Mexico as Governor have surfaced and an investigation is underway concerning his conduct. Erik Holder being America’s new Attorney General, admittedly goofed with the Marc Rich pardon, the poster child for hundreds of millions of dollars, being an absconding tax cheat. Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton, has her husband’s library being funded by invisible and silent characters in the Arab world. Of course, there won’t be any quid pro quo or altering American interests as a result of $900 million dollars being funneled to to the Clinton library, right?

So urgent is a stimulus package that President Obama allowed Nancy Pelosi to write the bill. The bill, so full of pork barrel spending and embarrassment, has President Obama putting his prestige on the line for a bill that Americans by the hour are repudiating. President Obama has stated “its time to stop talking and to start acting.”

Where is the full force of the President Obama’s moral persuasion at a time that he declares that without this bill, America will face “catastrophe”? Should not the President have had a much larger role in crafting this piece of legislation to ensure its vitality and passage? Did not the President state on numerous occasions that bipartisanship was necessary to move America forward?

So why remain so aloof and on the sidelines as the most important crafting of a bill is cobbled together overnight? President Obama stated “I won the election”. The people of America have chosen him to lead. So where is the leadership?

Is it possible that his team wasn’t capable of actually writing a stimulus package? It is unthinkable that this might the case. But seeing how the Obama team has transitioned toward governing the United States thus far, it might not be far from the truth.

Maybe experience does matter? Maybe judgment matters as well?