In the days since Barack Obama first suggested that his ?greatest weakness? is being disorganized, Hillary Rodham Clinton has hammered him on it, repeatedly highlighting her own organizational and managerial skills in an effort to raise doubts about whether Obama pays enough attention to detail to be successful as president.
The way Clinton?s camp sees it, the distinction is not just who?s better at paper-shuffling and returning e-mails and phone calls.
Rather, they believe Obama?s recent remarks to the Reno Gazette-Journal and in a Jan. 15 debate can be used to make the case that he lacks the ability to hold government accountable.
It?s a story line that dovetails nicely with party criticisms of the Bush administration?s management of Iraq contracts and its response to Hurricane Katrina.
Obama first broached the issue in a Jan. 14 interview with the Gazette-Journal editorial board, where he was quoted as saying, ?I?m not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that?s not my job. My job is to set a vision of ?Here?s where the bureaucracy needs to go.??
The next day, NBC?s Brian Williams, serving as a moderator of a debate in Las Vegas, read part of the quote to Obama, then asked, ?Do the American people want someone in the Oval Office who is an operating officer??
Obama responded that ?being president is not making sure that schedules are being run properly or the paperwork is being shuffled effectively. It involves having a vision for where the country needs to go.?
Later in the debate, when asked about his greatest strength and weakness, he elaborated: ?I ask my staff never to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it, because I will lose it.?
The comment prompted laughter, and he continued: ?My desk and my office doesn't look good. I've got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff. And that's not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run. That's what I've always done, and that's why we run not only a good campaign but a good U.S. Senate office.?