Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Any president is going to need extremely good advisers.
See that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented.
Presidents need to be critically studied and analyzed.
Sometimes, when you look at an adviser's failings or perceived failings, I think the tough question you have to ask as a journalist is, 'What does this say about the president?'
We need someone with superb judgement in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president - and the president alone - who always makes the final call.
Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.
Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.
White House and State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards military and diplomatic issues, not development issues.
We are still waiting for the president to introduce a concrete plan. He has just hinted at what he is thinking about doing, but no one has seen a proposal.
When a president promises something beyond his years in office, he is fundamentally unaccountable. It is not his budget that must finish the job. Another president inherits the problem, and it becomes a ball too easily dropped, a plan too easily abandoned, a dream too readily deferred.
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