http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/18/ron-suskind-s-confidence-men-shows-a-scared-president-obama.htmlha ha ha. What a joke this admn is.
A new book about Barack Obama, whose Pulitzer-prize winning author received extensive co-operation from the White House, portrays the American president as indecisive, out of his depth and facing insubordination from advisers.
The White House has mounted an aggressive operation to discredit Ron Suskind's book Photo: AP
By Toby Harnden, Washington10:34PM BST 18 Sep 201123 Comments
"Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President" by Ron Suskind, to be published tomorrow, could not have come at a worse time for Mr Obama. His popularity remains in the doldrums, he is struggling to implement a new economic plan and he faces a tough challenge to be re-elected next year.
Larry Summers, a former top economic adviser is quoted as telling Peter Orszag, then Mr Obama's budget director, at a dinner in Washington's Bombay Club: "We're home alone. There's no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes." Mr Summers was US Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Mr Orszag is quoted as telling the author: "Larry just didn't think the president knew what he was deciding."
Anita Dunn, a former Obama communications director, is quoted as saying that "looking back, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace ... Because it actually fits all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace for women."
Christine Romer, another former senior economic adviser, is quoted as saying after she was excluded from a meeting by Mr Summers: "I felt like a piece of meat." She is also said to have asked Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor and Obama ally: "Why is it always the women?" "Why are we the only ones with the balls around here?"
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Mr Obama granted Mr Suskind, who wrote three bestsellers about the Bush administration that seriously damaged President George W. Bush's credibility, a 50-minute interview.
He told the author: "The area in my presidency where I think my management and understanding of the presidency evolved most, and where I think we made the most mistakes, was less on the policy front and more on the communications front.
"I think one of the criticisms that is absolutely legitimate about my first two years was that I was very comfortable with a technocratic approach to government ... a series of problems to be solved."
He also stated that "Carter, Clinton and I all have sort of the disease of being policy wonks".
President Jimmy Carter, who failed to win re-election in 1980, has long been a byword for a failed, out-of-touch, one-term president. White House aides go to great length never to compare Mr Obama to Mr Carter.
Publication comes as the White House is on the back foot over calls from James Carville, a former top Clinton aide, for Mr Obama to "panic" and fire senior staff after the Democratic loss of a previously safe congressional seat in New York
The White House has mounted an aggressive operation to discredit the book, scrambling to obtain copies and contacting reporters to point out minor errors.
More seriously, some of those quoted have suggested they have never uttered the words quoted to them by Suskind, who states he conducted 746 hours of interviews with more than 200 people.
Miss Dunn told the website Politico: "This is not what I told the author, this is not what I believe and anyone who knows me and my history of supporting this president as a candidate and in office knows this isn't true."
Overall, Suskind portrays Mr Obama as ineffectual and uncertain – not the image the White House wants to be projected at the start of his re-election campaign.
"During so many days of crisis in his first two years," Suskind writes, "Obama often felt that performance pressure – having to play the part of president, in charge and confident, each day, in front of his seasoned, combative, prideful team, many of whom had, all together, recently served another president.
"As he confided to one of his closest advisers, after a private display of uncertainty, 'I can't let people see that, I don't want the staff to see that. But I get up every morning. It's a heavy burden'."
Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said in a statement: "The truth is simple and well known: President Obama and his economic team walked into office during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and took bold, decisive action that prevented the collapse of the financial system, saving millions of jobs and putting the economy back in a place where it is creating jobs and growing again.
"The President made very tough decisions in the most difficult of circumstances and his team executed those decisions faithfully and tirelessly."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8772380/Barack-Obama-book-casts-grim-view-of-presidents-leadership.htmlWhat a joke. Obama considers himself a " policy wonk". Lmfao.
