Obama said, in a sweep of interviews, that he "screwed up" when choosing some his nominees. His reason for his screw up was that he didn't want to set different standards for different people, and letting the people who haven't paid their taxes off would set a bad precedent. President Obama's reason for admitting his mistakes were to show the "latest series of change-the-tone signals" that were meant to show the contrast of this administration to the last couple. The buzz about Obama's admittance is that it wasn't that he just admitted to the mistake but that he took responsibility for it, something that the Bush and Clinton administration rarely did. But there are reasons why these past administrations haven't lightly said that they made mistakes, and that is because admittance will sometimes "undercut" the power that the presidency has. If he keeps admitting mistakes it will fuel the arguments that Republicans had during the election about him not having enough experience. David Axelrod, one of Obama's senior advisers said, "in the interest of trying to get our policy goals, lost sight of how important the other piece is- which is don't break faith with the principles that he believes in".
I think that this is a first couple weeks of the administration fluke. Admitting something early on shows that he is willing to take responsibility, but I agree with the article, that the more he admits them the more doubt will pile on. I just hope he doesn't make any mistakes that way he won't have to admit anything more. :]
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4 comments:
I think it is very unrealistic to think that President Obama will not make any mistakes. When he took office, I personally was very worried that the American public had placed him on a pedastol. Above everyone else as a savior -- one who would save America and could do no wrong. It is obivous that Obama was and is the best choice for the Presidency, but no one can expect a flawless execution especially in these hard times.
I think that it seems as though he is admitting his mistakes often (even though there haven't been too many) because we aren't used to an executive admitting he is wrong (thank you, President Bush!). Everyone makes mistakes, but President Obama just needs to slow down and find people to fill the cabinent that haven't "innocently" messed up their taxes by owing Americans hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Hopefully, this will all be cleared up soon and he can go back to his job -- leading America out of this troubled period.
I agree with Doria. I can't imagine any human not making a mistake in his or her job for 4 entire years. Obama's admittance isn't usual for this country, or at least for the last 8 years, so I think we just aren't used to it. Also, we have all witnessed the incredible hype around Obama's presidency, and our high hopes starting off with a "mistake" isn't exactly meeting our expectations. But then again, not paying one's taxes is certainly not a good thing, but definitely isn't like trying to hire an axe murderer. We need to just let this one go. This certainly isn't the problem that we need to focus on in the grand scheme of things.
I agree with Doria. I can't imagine any human not making a mistake in his or her job for 4 entire years. Obama's admittance isn't usual for this country, or at least for the last 8 years, so I think we just aren't used to it. Also, we have all witnessed the incredible hype around Obama's presidency, and our high hopes starting off with a "mistake" isn't exactly meeting our expectations. But then again, not paying one's taxes is certainly not a good thing, but definitely isn't like trying to hire an axe murderer. We need to just let this one go. This certainly isn't the problem that we need to focus on in the grand scheme of things.
I think it was good because while it may have undercut his power during a decade or so ago, people now view this as a major change from before which offsets any sort of consequence of saying this. It shows that he is willing to acknowledge a mistake and change and fix it unlike the previous presidencies
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