The Most Essential Skill of Any President

I think everyone, no matter what political party they aspire to, can agree that the most crucial skill for any President is to surround themselves with intelligent advisers who will guide them to the best decisions. Kennedy did this with McNamara and his own brother (who did deserve the job). Bush "did" this with Rove and Cheney (good choices? probably not). But I see this as Obama's serious downfall. I know I don't agree with any of his policies, but, barring that little detail, he can't seem to appoint an adviser that hasn't evaded taxes or done something extremely reckless politically.

Back in March of last year, Samantha Power (Obama's foreign policy advisor) called Hillary Clinton a "monster" (forget for a minute that she was right, you still can't say that and hope to have a job under the President of the United States). Also, last March, it came to light another foreign policy adviser Rob Mailey, had been meeting continually with the terrorist group Hamas. And then we have Tim Geithner who evaded large amounts of taxes. Then we have Bill Richardson (corruption), Nancy Killefer (payroll tax evasion), Hilda Solis (tax evasion), and Tom Daschle (more tax evasion). You starting to get the picture yet?

The latest in this trend of poorly thought through and piss poorly vetted advisers (or czars if you prefer the Soviet term like Obama does) is that of Van Jones (read about him here and here), the Green Jobs Czar. He came out last week with all guns blazing and called all Republicans "assholes" (they generally are but you can't say that on the record and hope to hold a political office). He also signed the 9/11 Truth petition arguing that the Bush administration either turned a blind eye to 9/11 or perpetrated the attack themselves (which could be the case but you don't want a special adviser to the President holding that belief). He also founded the ColorofChange.org which "addressed black issues" (aka he's a racist).

Now, I am torn over the "assholes" comment. I believe that people should be able to say whatever they want and if that was Jones's only slip up, I would have wanted to keep him around. But he's a racist and a conspiracy theorist, good riddance.

But this highlights a bigger problem. Obama cannot choose staff intelligently (a simple Google or Wikipedia search would have told him all he needed to know about Van Jones). This scares me more than his socialist-leaning policies. I think the ability to choose your comrades is the most important ability a President has to have....... and Boh'Rock ain't got it.

A parting thought: Maybe Obama needs a Czar for Appointments of Czars