The other day, Fixer wrote a great post about his decision as to which candidate to vote for today, and the next day he did a follow-on likening the President (Damn, it'll be good to put a capital 'P' on President again, God willing!) to a mechanic.
The Chimp took this nation apart and it barely runs. You gonna give your tools to the C-mechanic to fix it or to the A-guy?
I'm gonna take this analogy a step farther and compare the President to the guy who makes the A- or C-guy decision: the service writer.
The service writer is the face of the repair shop to the customer. He greets the customer and listens to his tale of automotive woe. He writes down the complaint as to what the car is or isn't doing, and then assigns the work to a mechanic, who does the actual diagnosis, and then figures out an estimate of time and cost and relays this to the customer for his approval.
The service writer always tries to match the mechanic to the job as best he can. Some mechanics (like me 'n Fixer, ahem...) can do it all, but sometimes they can't. You don't necessarily want the large bozo who R&Rs Cummins engines doing an exacting electronic diagnosis, just as an example.
Most service writers have mechanical experience, but it is only really necessary that they are conversant with theory and practice. They don't have to be master mechanics to assign a job to one. Hell, you don't want mechanics talking with the customers either. Shudder!
One of the big skills in being a good service writer is the ability to put the customer at ease and make his upcoming expense palatable to him. Call it a sales job, or maybe tact and diplomacy, which are about the same thing. Nobody likes to get their car fixed (or pay taxes) but sometimes it's necessary.
The main thing is that they are honest and can communicate clearly to and from the customer. What you don't want is a rip-off who takes your money and your car still doesn't work right. As Presidents go, we already have one of those. Bush could fuck up a junkyard with a rubber hammer and charge for a precision repair.
Which brings up that the service writer is also the complaint department if there's a problem with the customer's car after the repair. He didn't do the work, but he gets the blame. It is his responsibilty to ensure the finished product is up to snuff. Mechanics will tell you it doesn't matter what happens in the shop, but when that car goes out, it has to be right. If it's not, it's the service writer who catches the initial heat, which will be passed along in due course.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that our President doesn't have to do the actual work himself. What he is, is the face of our government. As long as he has an idea of what it is that he wants to do, he has 'mechanics', such as SecState, SecDef, AG, etc., to carry out the actual work. He has to have honest people whom he can trust, since the work goes out with first his name on it as President of the United States and then in our name as Americans.
Like a mechanic, though, he should be smart, know what he's doing, take pride in his work, admit his mistakes and clean up the rare comeback with a public smile, no matter what might pass between him and the guy who did the job in the first place.
In light of the president we have now, the next one should also have good judgment and a sense of shame so he doesn't commit criminal acts and poor policy decisions that benefit the few at the expense of the many. I always get the feeling that Bush is laughing at us for being suckers for lettin' him get away with all his shit and for not coming for him with pitchforks like we should have.
From my standpoint on 'experience' not being the main quality I'm looking for in a President, I'll bet you've already guessed that I'm going to vote for Barack Obama. Sometimes you need to vote with your head, and sometimes with your heart. I'm old enough to remember the promise of John Kennedy, even though he never really got the chance to pull off very much of it. We believed in him and felt good about the future.
I'm also old enough that there aren't many years left to me to see a better America. The old ways don't work. A new one might, and that's the way I'm going. With hope in my heart.
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