No, he doesn’t quite say that, but it’s really hard to draw any other conclusion when he suggests that we create a Chief Operating Officer for the administrative branch: The COO’s duties would lie in execution of government policy, including ensuring that the government is well managed and that it addresses key national priorities as one entity and not as hundreds of separate agencies operating in silos.
In other words, Obama didn’t learn on the job like everyone had hoped, nor had running for president prepared him to be president. Who knew? So the Democrats are trying to figure out how to help the president limp toward 2012 without embarrassing himself too much.
But in the process they would in essence turn the President into an elected monarch, as the position operates today in modern England: as mainly a figurehead. The solution isn’t to make the administrative branch even less accountable, but twofold 1) shrink the size of the Federal Government so that it is more manageable and 2) pick a president with administrative experience, next time.
