If the very professorial Obama is so thoughtful and in-depth, how did he get so many things so wrong?

Then why did Barack Obama get so many things so wrong? That’s the question that inescapably arises in response to the claim by NBC correspondent Chris Jansing on today’s Morning Joe that Obama’s decision-making style is “very professorial, thoughtful, in-depth.”

Jansing said that Obama and Trump “could not be more different in the way they approach problem solving,” describing Obama admin concerns about Trump’s supposed “shoot-from-the-hip” style. Mike Barnicle weighed in to wonder whether Trump would be up to the task of comforting the nation after tragedies such as the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.

But back to Professor Obama, and his thoughtful, in-depth decision making. So then, how did he get so many things so wrong, from Obamacare, to the Iran deal, to the withdrawal from Libya that spawned that “JV team,” ISIS?

Note: Jansing reports that Obama thinks he’s done a “great” job on the economy. Really? Slowest recovery in modern history? Record numbers of people out of work and on food stamps? Wonder what a lousy job would have looked like?

MIKE BARNICLE: Chris, do you think that part of what’s going on here—it’s hard to nail it down authoritatively—but part of what’s going on here is the president’s instinct, his worry, perhaps better phrased, his worry is that Donald J. Trump, is he up to the moment of being President of the United States, not just standing with Abe [at Pearl Harbor]. but these catastrophic things that occur in this country when a president and only a president can speak to the nation to calm the nation about things like that? CHRIS JANSING: I think there’s very little doubt about that. I mean, when you see this series of statements by the president, I think there are two things going on. One is, you don’t get to be President of the United States without a healthy ego. And so, like every other president, he believes that he did a good job, in fact he thinks he did great job on the economy and some other things. But yeah, there is another aspect of this. They could not be more different in the way they approach problem solving. This is a president—and we’ve seen it, anybody that works in the White House has seen it, talked to his aides about it—he approaches things in a very professorial, thoughtful, in-depth manner. He somebody who believes in reading everything, in absorbing a lot of things and having that sense of history. And there is a real concern by the president and by the people who surround him that this is not a serious man. This is not someone who considers the larger implications. Not just the historic implications but the larger implications of what’s going on in the world right now and that the shoot-from-the-hip kind of attitude goes against everything Barack Obama has always believed and the way he’s performed as a politician and as a president. BARNICLE: It struck me the other day, I was driving through Connecticut and on 84 and you pass through Newtown, and I was thinking about the President of the United States addressing the nation after that horrific, horrific murders in Newtown of children. And you wonder, your mind wanders and you wonder is President-elect Donald J. Trump up to that task? WILLIE GEIST: I think that address certainly would have been a lot different. Perhaps less emotional with a President Trump.



