John McCain's treatment of Sarah Palin's campaign is troublesome. Selected for her ability to get votes from the religious righties and elsewhere, McCain has kept her in a cocoon, effectively unable to appear in public. McCain appears to be a command-and-control guy who's used to giving orders, as would befit a third-generation Annapolis grad (his daddy was an Admiral as was grandpapa) with 22 years service as a Naval Officer. His hellacious 5-and-a-half year POW captivity likely taught him to live within himself and trust only his own instincts in assessing the world around him. So much for desktop analysis, though. The President is, in many respects, CEO of the federal government. In the sprawling and multi-layered Executive Branch, a successful president must be able and willing to delegate responsibility to cabinet officers and special assistants. Harry Truman's description, "The buck stops here", sounds accurate. With a command-and-control guy like McCain, though, the buck would stay on the president's desk the whole time, never being entrusted to a cabinet officer or special assistant. The Bush administration has had a VP who has shamelessly grabbed power and still uses the presidency to browbeat Congress in furthering the administration's agenda. Say what they want about Bill Clinton. He was able to delegate responsibility and manage the consequences. Case in point: Attorney General Janet Reno. Aren't many presidents who'd let their own Attorney General investigate their administrations as Clinton let Reno do with Whitewater, the Monica Lewinsky affair and others. Compare Clinton to Nixon. He ordered his Attorney General, Elliot Richardson (a Boston old money Yankee), to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal. When Richardson refused, he was promptly fired or resigned, depending on the source. McCain's command-and-control manner won't work well in the White House. His treatment of Palin's campaign won't work with cabinet secretaries seated around a table. The presidency is not a one-man job. McCain served as a Navy fighter pilot, operating a single-seat plane. Being so high in the sky all by himself, with the entire earth below him, has likely gotten to him.
