Bob Kerrey, Mark Alderman, and Howard Schweitzer make an interesting proposal. President Obama should create the post of federal Chief Operating Officer:
Let the president’s chief of staff manage the White House – an enormous responsibility in itself. We need a chief operating officer to manage everything else.
While a COO must understand how policy and politics influence decision making in Washington, he should leave the politics to the chief of staff and others in the White House and undertake the hard role of running the business of government. Far from reflecting poorly on this president or his chief of staff, this suggestion is about the efficacy of the office itself. This innovation would modernize the institution of the presidency and enhance the ability of this president and his successors to govern.
They even have somebody in mind for the job:
The choice of the first COO will be critical for the future of the office, much as the selection of the first president shaped that office for our nation. Fortunately, an ideal candidate comes to mind: New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He is a man of well-documented business savvy who has also exhibited an ability to apply private-sector know-how to a diverse government enterprise. He has experience with public budgets and managing private-sector payrolls. His political status as an independent makes him uniquely nonpartisan in an age of vicious factions.
Hmm. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
It’s an intriguing, practical suggestion which I sincerely doubt that President Obama will listen to.
Many countries in the world have separate heads of state and heads of government, presidents and prime ministers. It’s frequently been said that United States unites both roles in the presidency.
That may have been the way the presidency has evolved but I don’t think it was intended to be that way. I think that we were to be a country in which there was no head of state or, more accurately, in which the people are the head of state. The president is the government’s chief operating officer. Why the job hasn’t appealed to many of those elected to the presidency for the last century or so is probably the question we should be pondering.
Interesting historic question about the U.S. and the head of state. I’m inclined to think:
Foreign relations were not a major concern at the time of the founding;
Some of the functions of the head of state were probably delegated to the Secretary of State, making foreign affairs inferior to the CEO;
Jeffersonians likely shared your view that we don’t need a head of state.
“I think that we were to be a country in which there was no head of state or, more accurately, in which the people are the head of state.”
I went looking for the origin of the appellation, “Mr. President”, and found this:
His High Mightiness…
Come to think of it, that sounds downright Cromwellian.
“His High Mightiness” was the term of address used for the head of the Dutch assembly at the time IIRC.
The job description outlined for this proposed COO-US is to:
This would mean that the President would be delegating the task of understanding how policy and politics interact, of determining which policies produce the maximum political reward, and of choosing and supervising people who actually administer these policies through the government.
What, then, would be the President’s job?
You’re coming around to what I was trying to imply, Transplanted Lawyer. That job description is the president’s job. If the president is ill-equipped or unwilling to do that job, he or she shouldn’t run for it in the first place.
Heh. Let me interpret: “We capitulate. Mr. Obama, now President Obama, never was, has not become, and never will become competant to handle the office. We goofed; he’s in over his head.
We need a band-aid.”
Speaking of ancient history, wasn’t this something being thrown around in the late 70s, either as backhanded criticism of Carter or as part of some Ford-Reagan power-sharing plan devised by Kissinger?
Sounds like a blame-shifting strategy to me.
Actually, I have another theory. In an era where the White House is in a “continuous campaign,” a President may need someone to actually run the government so a President can concentrate on raising money and getting reelected. Cynical, I know.
The president is the government’s chief operating officer. Why the job hasn’t appealed to many of those elected to the presidency for the last century or so is probably the question we should be pondering.
Touché!