From this Sunday's Meet the Press, the viewers were treated to yet another round of what I would do if I were advising the president by Hardball host, Chis Matthews. And look out because it seems he's got another man-crush going here, this time with former Reagan and George W. Bush chief of staff, Jim Baker.
DAVID GREGORY: I think that's the key point, and we're going to talk about Kennedy in just a minute. You were making the point to me this week about, you know, where's his Bobby Kennedy? Who's got the muscle? When the president says, and he did say, "The user experience of this website is everything," who had the muscle in the White House to get it done and make sure--
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yes, I--
DAVID GREGORY: --the president gets what he wants?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: --everybody goes to their battle stations when there's chaos. You always go to where you've been arguing before. But I've always been arguing this president doesn't have a chain of command, a very clear line of authority and unique responsibility.
I remember Sebelius, who I like of course, most people do like her, she's a public servant. But when she was asked, "Who's in charge?" in that committee, under oath, she started to talk about someone, the head of C.M.S., who handles Medicare and Medicaid. Among 30 or 40 other responsibilities, this person had the rollout responsibilities.
Look at Japan, the occupation of Japan, it simple: Put one guy in charge, Doug MacArthur. You put somebody in charge and they're uniquely responsible for its success or failure. Obama doesn't do things that way. He's got floaters, like Valerie Jarett, floating around. He doesn't want to have a real chief of staff, like a Jim Baker. He doesn't want to give authority to people, and I think it's been a real problem.
Yes, because only "real men" can help Republicans screw up a country as badly as Baker helped those two do.
