President Obama was going to be different. He was going to learn from Jimmy Carter’s failures. He was going to avoid Bill Clinton’s fate. Like his well-run campaign, Obama’s tenure in the White House was going to be cool, calm and effective.
If Clinton failed by sending an over-cooked healthcare reform to Congress, Obama would succeed by leaving the details to lawmakers. If McCain’s campaign was psychodrama, Obama’s administration was going to be all collegiality.
It did not work out that way and now the knives are out for Obama’s team. First there was Ed Luce’s piece in the Financial Times. Now Leslie H. Gelb, a veteran DC insider, comes out and says it: the President must change key personnel now. In the Daily Beast, he writes:
‘Unless he speedily sets up a new team, he will be reduced to a speechmaker.
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