Channeling Jimmy Carter

The Peter Principle At Work

Here is a thought experiment--how do we reckon "history" will judge the presidency of Barack Obama?  Ever since Obama was first elected we have had the suspicion that he would turn out to be Jimmy Carter redux.

For those old enough to have lived through the Carter administration you will remember an administration characterised by ineffectualness.  No doubt this was due in part to the moral superiority which Carter appeared to bring to his duties and responsibilities--a superiority which led him, for example, to turn down the thermostats in the White House and dress in a cardigan in the Oval Office in an attempt to set an example for the country in reducing energy consumption.  It was a spectacular fail. 

Jimmy Carter was (and remains) a professing Christian, who, as one commentator noted, appeared conveniently to forget about the Ten Commandments when it came to international relations and sought to apply the personal ethics of the Sermon on the Mount.  Carter apparently overlooked that the God-given duty of every state is to bear the sword.  He thought it was better to beat the sword into a plough and show by example how nations ought to conduct themselves.

In sum, Carter's Christianity was a manifestation of a fad which breezed through the church in the sixties, seventies, and eighties--namely, the call to be a New Testament Christian (as opposed to an Old Testament Christian, or a biblical Christian)--which fad, like the legacy of the Carter administration, soon disappeared like a puff of smoke in a typhoon.

President Obama has been a millenarian of another sort, but a millenarian nonetheless.
  He has endeavoured to inaugurate the completion of the great Progressive agenda began by Woodrow Wilson one hundred years ago.  He appeared to believe that his election and inauguration would change the world fundamentally by some mystical or religious force.  He would re-set the international chess board, by offering an open hand of friendship towards the traditional opponents of the United States (Palestinians, Islamic nations, Russia, China).  He would bring together Democrats and Republicans to coalesce in non-partisan lawmaking, united by himself.  He would complete the Progressive revolution.  What Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Johnson and Kennedy had begun, Obama would complete.  The transformation of the state into a benign over-parent would be completed on his watch.  He would pronounce what was to happen, and has appeared to expect that in the sheer wonder of his words, the prevailing reality would change.  Government health-care would be the first, signal step. The USA would be turned into a European-style welfare state.  Obamacare has turned out to be shambolic in the execution--as have most of his initiatives. 


So, how will history judge Obama as president?  Immature?  Idealistic?  Unrealistic?  Like Carter it appears his ideological world-view led him to confront the world not as it actually is, but as he believed it ought to be.  Not only that, his world-view has led him to hold expectations of how others would regard him.  They would see him as a quasi-messianic figure who would fundamentally change much in the world.   When civilians do this we grade them as deluded at worst, or at best, naive and immature.  When politicians do it, we grade them as incompetent. 

For us, we believe the most revealing moment in his 2008 presidential campaign (and subsequent administration) occurred when Obama was participating in a question/answer session with Pastor Rick Warren.  He was asked whether he believed the unborn child was a human being.  He replied that such a question was way above his pay-grade--which was actually a deceptive and misleading response, since it has subsequently turned out that he has very clear views on the subject.  He does not believe that human rights should be accorded to the unborn child.

In an ironic way, we have come to think that candidate Obama actually spoke the truth that day.  The Presidency of the United States has been actually well above his pay-grade.  He has been fundamentally incompetent.  That is how we believe his presidency will be judged.  He will be seen as being Jimmy Carter redux. 

In the seventies and eighties, management theorist, Laurence J. Peter coined the Peter Principle.  In business organisations and bureaucratic entities, people  were selected for positions according to their performance in their current role rather than on their abilities to perform the new role.  The Peter Principle stated that as a consequence, people tend to be promoted until they reach their "position of incompetence".  Thus, organisations are replete with people operating in jobs which are beyond and above them.  There they stay, unable to progress further or sideways because their present incompetence prevents selection.

We believe that President Obama has been one more example of  the Peter Principle at work.  History will judge his presidency to have been ineffectual and incompetent.  Let's be thankful for term limits.