Warren G. Harding and the bad CEO

In 1999, facing the prospect of Governor Bush as President, I read the definitive biography of Warren G. Harding to begin to understand what a Bush presidency would be like.

People forget that Harding was a popular president: A handsome man with an attractive personality; a man who looked like a leader, but lived like one of the boys.

Only after Harding's death—when it was revealed how oblivious the President was to the corruption of his administration—did people realize how out of his depth Harding was in the White House. Since the late 1920s, Harding's presidency has been justly judged a failure.

One of the best takes on the similar failure of the Bush presidency is a recent post by Kevin Drum:

Bush styles himself a "CEO president," but the world is full to bursting with CEOs who have goals they would dearly love to attain but who lack either the skill or the fortitude to make them happen. […]

George Bush is, fundamentally, a mediocre CEO, the kind of insulated leader who's convinced that his instincts are all he needs. Unfortunately, like many failed CEOs before him, he's about to learn that being sure you're right isn't the same thing as actually being right.

So sure: George Bush is genuinely committed to winning in Iraq. He just doesn't know how to do it and doesn't have the skills, experience, or personality to look beyond his own instincts in order to figure it out. America is about to pay a heavy price for that.

Karl Marx was wrong. The first time was the farce. This time is the tragedy.

(Mark Schmitt writes a follow-up to Kevin's post.)