Friday, February 26, 2010

Obama is a lousey moderator (among other things)

The only real result from yesterday's health insurance summit in Washington seems to be more finger pointing. Dems are pointing critical fingers at Republicans for refusing to go along with this massive bill and Republicans point to Democrats' refusal to abandon legislation that most Americans find distasteful or, at least, suspect.

So why wasn't this day-long summit more fruitful?

For one thing, any experienced business leader can tell you that the success of any meeting depends on the moderator's ability to follow an agenda that is built upon stated and agreed upon desired outcomes. Obama didn't do that. If there was a written agenda, the viewing public wasn't aware of it. It there were stated objectives, they must have been secret. Instead, Obama, seemingly at random, picked on attendees to speak. And what's a politician going to do whenever given the opportunity to speak in from of a camera? You bet, grandstand. By the time everyone in the room was done bloviating the day was shot.

If the President wanted to produce any substantive results in yesterday's summit, he did a poor job going about it. But then, maybe he got exactly what he wanted.

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