This is my draft copy of the blog post that was pulled from Forbes.com on Sunday--posted by popular demand.
Note: Most of what I pose are the questions that all Americans should be asking. The chapter of our book: Beware the Pretender (excerpt below) describes one kind of "impostor"--someone "pretending to be something they are not--either intentionally or unintentionally. An"impostor" is technically someone pretending to be someone they are not. Like many other Americans I wonder why Barack Obama is keeping so much of his background hidden. "Where there is smoke, there is fire," and where something is being diligently hidden, there is usually something important to hide.
Is There An Imposter In The White House?—with an Excerpt from “Hope Is Not A Strategy”
©John Mariotti 2012
There is something very wrong when the sitting president refuses to divulge huge pieces of information about his background. What is he hiding? Maybe the “birthers” were a little extreme, but is there something wrong with this “manufactured candidate,” whose history remains sealed from public view? What is he hiding?
Could the “Hawaii birth certificate” be a forgery? Is there something much worse—like “sponsorship” by an unnamed special interest? I don’t know. I do know that the man in the White House now is an imposter. The only question is which kind of an imposter: an incompetent “pretender” or a genuine phony, a “Manchurian candidate,” who is a liberal, ½ black and ½ white, and an obvious Muslim sympathizer (despite claims of being a Christian—in clear conflict with his non-Christian behavior).
Will this campaign expose him as the imposter, and the pretender his behavior has revealed? Will it expose his hidden history and murky background. We know about his failures and mistakes.
For those who don’t, here is another in this series of revealing excerpts from HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency. The book is now available on www.amazon.com in paperback and Kindle versions. Other in e-book versions are available at www.smashwords.com.
Excerpt from the chapter: Beware the Pretender
…”No matter how many times President Obama refers to the “problems he inherited,” he has now been in office three years. Certainly many of the current problems can be traced back to events that happened during the eight years that Bush held the top office, and some can be traced back to even earlier presidencies—but far from all of them.
Many of the problems are newly created (or made worse), and Barack Obama owns them. Candidate Obama stepped up and essentially said, “I want the job, and everything that comes with it” by running for president. After three years in office, the problems now belong to him and his presidency. He caused them, made them worse, or didn’t solve them. Either way, they are his now.
…In leadership, you cannot “pretend” to be a leader. You either are—or you aren’t—a leader. One or the other will become apparent very quickly.
If you want the leadership job, you must step up and take full ownership of it. A “pretender” or “poser” is like an actor who has learned all the right lines, but has no idea what they mean. Once the script has been followed (or deviated from), the actor is clueless about what to do next. This is the job of the leader. Unfortunately, in this government, the “directors” often seem clueless, having learned in academia where results and wins/losses are theoretical, or in politics where success (at getting elected) is more a matter of rhetoric than results.
If you are not ready for a position, or do not believe that you have what it takes to rise to the challenge (or clean up the mess even if you believe it is not your mess), then do not take the job. This was Barack Obama’s fundamental mistake. He grossly underestimated the difficulty of the position he was running for, and overestimated his preparedness to actually do the job. Just because he could “talk a good game” (thanks to a phalanx of speech writers and the omnipresent teleprompters) does not mean he actually knew what to do or how to do it. The presidency of the United States of America is not a place for heavy OJT (On-the Job-Training)….”
After the first three plus years of the presidency, it is painfully clear that Barack Obama was a “pretty face,” and “glib speaker” and a lightweight liberal politician with a community organizer/radical background. The American people should be outraged at this man’s behavior and even his candidacy. Why are they not? Because of the misinformation delivered by sympathetic liberal/mainstream media who loves his nonsensical form of governing.
…”Obama’s perceived preparedness for the presidency is a terrible delusion, from which it is difficult to escape. Mistakes build upon each other and result in even more complex problems. Difficult problems that are mishandled become even more difficult to fix. When you have too little experience, lack substance (other than the words of your latest speech), then leading, managing and problem solving simply don’t happen. And that is what has occurred. When you compound the problem by surrounding your self with like-minded theorists, lacking in real-world experience, things become worse yet. The theoretical solutions to problems often don’t work due to the messiness of the real world—and the reasons are almost unfathomable to these rookie executive/politicians. …”
What should Americans think about this “imposter?” Will he divulge his true background so we can all see who he is and where he came from—really? If not, is this just a man who should never have been sworn into the office of President in the first place, and who has crippled Americans miserably during his term?
Will we continue to believe his misstatements (the politically correct term for lies)? Can he simply use the media to “erase and forget the past three years of misery and missteps?” Or will we learn from his imperialistic behavior and terrible results and throw him out in November?
That is what why we wrote HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency. To learn more go to: www.hopeisnotastrategybook.com and sign up—and go to www.amazon.com and buy the book—and see for yourself! There are thirty chapters that reveal what was behind Barack Obama’s mistakes, failures and lack of leadership.
-----
John Mariotti is an internationally known executive and an award-winning author. His newest book, co-authored with D. M. Lukas, Hope is NOT a Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency will be available in March 2012 at www.amazon.com .
Mariotti’s 2008 book, The Complexity Crisis was named one of 2008’s Best Business Books. His critically acclaimed 2010 novel, The Chinese Conspiracy, merges an exciting fictional thriller with the reality of America’s risk from Cyber-Attacks. Mariotti does keynote speeches, serves on corporate boards and is a consultant/advisor to companies. He can be reached at www.mariotti.net .
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.