Reverend Benny & Mister Sid's At Your Service #37

Who will be Obama's Ulysses S. Grant?

By Glen Bledsoe

(Salem) - Not three months into his administration Barack Obama has had his own Hurricane Katrina dropped in his lap. He didn't create the banking crisis, but it's his to solve. It's difficult to say that his leadership in this is any better than Bush's with Katrina.

Obama telling Geithner that he couldn't resign ("Sorry buddy, you've still got a job,") sounds dangerously like Bush's "You're doing a good job, Brownie."

What do these names mean to you? McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Grant. These were men (among others) which Lincoln chose one after another to defeat the Confederacy, but little progress was made until Lincoln picked Grant. McClellan would smoke a cigar with the men and throw his hat into the air when they cheered, but Grant was a get-the-job-done kind of guy.

If Obama is like Lincoln, then Geithner and Summer are like McClellan and Burnside. Not the right men for the job. Geithner and Summer were too involved in creating the mess to begin with. Obama wanted to choose experienced people in the banking industry, but perhaps they're all too involved.

Who will be Obama's Ulysses S. Grant?

Who models the kind of leadership, responsibility and innovative thinking to drag the economy out of the quicksand? If not for his ill-health, I'd recommend Steve Jobs.

He lifted Apple from the ashes in the late 90's through sheer brilliance and vision. Let his example of his own compensation provide the example for Wall Street. Steve takes a customary $1 annual salary and stock. If the company does well, he profits.

If the company tanks, his holdings vanish. (Jobs also has significant earnings from Pixar/Disney.) Not that Steve is in it for the money. He's in it for the artistic satisfaction of designing our future.

But Steve, I doubt, would take the job even if he was well. iPods and operating systems and 3D animated cartoons make so much more sense than the fantasy world of economics. Anybody know if Warren Buffet is busy?

Frame 1 | Frame 2 | Frame 3 | Frame 4