Book claims Obama lacks experience

Over 14 million Americans are currently unemployed, every sixth person lives under the poverty level and there is no end of the economical crisis in sight, America is in a sad shape. And the great black hope, president Barack Obama has not achieved a palpable improvement yet. Why? What is he doing wrong? What should he do? In bad times good advice is readily sought. Renowned journalists, bestselling authors, and economic experts are seemingly in a race for the best recipes, flooding bookstores and newspapers with their analyses. 

The most intensely and controversially discussed of all these works currently is Ron Suskind’s, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President. Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who is known for two books, harshly critical of Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush. Now Obama is under Suskind microscope, and it’s not flattering. Suskind views the incumbent as intelligent but sadly lacking in experience. He paints a picture of a wavering leader surrounded by a coterie of economic and political dilettantes, sophomoric and ill suited for the monumental task at hand. 

According to the author, Obama’s staff is equally culpable, especially those from the Clinton era. He reserves his harshest comments for economic adviser Lawrence Summers, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner. Citing many insider stories, Suskind shows how this trio routinely ignored the president’s instructions and followed a so called Wall Street agenda. The author heaps the most scorn on Tim Geithner, who he fingers as failing to effectively address the Citigroup debacle (the selling of worthless mortgage related investments known as Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs). 

He describes him as the “boyish man in the too-long jacket,” who looks “more than anything like a teenager who just grabbed a suit out of his dad’s closet.”  Even worse is the trio’s alleged creation of a macho work environment that worked against the interest of women. Suskind cites several discontented female employees, including Communications director Anita Dunn, who stated that the White House “fulfills all legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace.” 

It should be noted that Dunn, among others, now claims that her quotes have been taken out of context. Suskind disagrees. The author likens the president to prince Hamlet, if only for his “inaction.” Suskind can be unforgiving (at times), assailing the president’s inability to translate his campaign hype and believability into tangible success. He writes: “Obama misses one good opportunity after the other... Over time, some of his more admirable features, his joy of inquiry, his impulse to reach just a bit beyond his grasp, started to get planed down. He was making fewer decisions and almost none where he couldn’t manage to tease some supporting consensus from his senior staff. After eight months in office, the president lost control of the White House. On almost no occasion did he manage to put his will into politics.” 

Suskind is particularly critical of Obama’s inability to gain control over the financial institutions, to end the potentially toxic effects of derivatives, currency speculation, and unethical high-risk dealings. The author’s voluminous undertaking ends mid way through Obama’s first term, and as such cannot be used to gauge the president’s growth and soaring accomplishments, especially in the area of foreign affairs. If the Obama administration should be faulted is in its inability to capitalise on its victories on the war on terror, the killing of bin Laden, al Awlaki, and a slew of terror masterminds, proving that the battle against extremism can be waged without starting open ended wars. And what about the president's well received legislation overhauling the credit card business? And his timely bailout to resuscitate a near moribund auto industry? 

To his credit, Suskind acknowledges that Obama’s ineffectiveness is partly due to a non-pliant Republican congress that irks at bipartisan overtures. And of the economy, the author notes: “Not this president, but his predecessors have put this country in the misery, out of which the inexperienced newcomer could not pull it out yet. This is backed up by statistics that show that the economic crisis stems from decades of deregulation and an increasing income gap.” Since the release of Confidence, Emanuel and Summers have left the administration and key posts have been filled by women. Suskind too has reviewed the president in a more favorable light in recent interviews. 

Supposedly, there were some 200 interviewees involved in this ambitious undertaking, including the president. That said, its indictment is premature and the overall effort should be slighted for its skewed auctorial perspective. Mindful of the fluidity of national and global politics, Suskind, with all his pontifications could have found better use of his time, may be in talk radio.

• Additional commentary by Dr Glenville Ashby, New York correspondent: The Guardian Media Group.

• Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. HarperCollins Publishers, New York 2011. ISBN: 978-0-06-142925-5

• Available: Amazon.com; barnesandnoble.com 

• Rating:  *** (Recommended)

• Susanna Petrin is a Swiss journalist whose writings have appeared in the Basler Zeitung, the Tages-Anzeiger, Annabelle and The Zeit, among others.