Stephen H Baum Leadership

I am a fan of Barack Obama. But several of his leadership choices are worrisome. They are negative “Signal Acts,” — deeds that resonate far deeper than words.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Bush governance was replete with agencies that failed their fiduciary obligations (securities trading, regulating food safety, consumer safety, oil regulation, environment to the point that the average citizen could no longer trust the system. We saw favoritism, self-dealing, corruption. Barack promised a departure from “everybody does it.”

In that light, it is a negative Signal Act to continue with Tim Geithner. It is a negative Signal Act to continue with Tom Daschle. It is not encouraging to see the appointment of an SEC commissioner soft on oversight. “Nobody is perfect,” but cheating on taxes and failing to advise the President before he goes public with the appointment?

Future challenges will be even more severe and I don’t sense a true north that will restore faith in the system.

We cannot know the behind the scenes facts of the stimulus package, but David Brooks (New York Times) may be right: they had a clean, short-term stimulus package all set which would have had bipartisan support and set the path for the future; then the Dems added their laundry list and lost all Republican support and some Democratic support. Where was Obama at a time when he had the most public support for using his velvet-gloved steel hand?

Thats my view. What’s yours?