Experience vs Inspiration (email debate with Alex)

Experience vs. Inspiration (Email with Alex, Feb 23)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roseanne-barr/experience-vs-inspiratio_b_87982.html
Posted February 22, 2008 | 11:52 AM (EST)

Read More: Barack Obama, Barack Obama 2008, Inspiration, Oprah Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Breaking Entertainment News
When I fly in an airplane I want the pilot with the most experience, not the one who can inspire hope in me that I get to where I am going. When I pay my taxes, I want the person filing them to be experienced, not the new person who inspires hope in me that he can do the job. When I hire someone to fix my washing machine, I want the tried and true experienced person, not the one who inspires me to hope that he can fix it. When I go to the doctor I do not want to get the one who inspires hope in me that s/he can cure what's wrong, but the one who knows what the hell to do the minute I call. It's not really the job of a public servant to inspire, but to get the job that the people demand done. The democrats think that if they have hope and are inspired things will get better, but they actually won't. When Oprah makes her employees sign her fifty page non-disclosure statement, she doesn't "hope" they can't break it, she pays teams of experienced lawyers to MAKE SURE they can't break it, or be sued in an experienced court by an experienced judge.

Response
May I...?

If it wasn't for inspiration, the pilot, the plumber, the doctor, and Oprah's people, wouldn't have had the guts to finish what they started. To get the degree, to accomplish the challenges they faced. To be good at things, you need people to push you along and help you finish when things are tough. You don't need some experienced asshole leaning over your back telling you how it’s done. No one needs that.

Does the president fly planes? Does he fix washing machines? Does he operate on people? Does he keep Oprah's nose clean? No, those are the jobs of specialists. Those are the tasks assigned by the president.

A president is supposed to figure out where the biggest problems are, and inspire the right people to get the job done. He tells you, you can trust the pilot, you need to call a plumber, you should see a doctor, and he tells Oprah to watch her ass. He doesn't have to know details, just how to direct the people who deal with the details. A president is supposed to understand the big picture and synthesize a solution down to assigning specialists.

I don't want a president who is experienced, I want a president who gets people to want to work. It's the president's job to figure out what people need to do and it’s the people's job to follow through.

What happens in an imperfect system though, is that his decisions on what to do aren't what people want. So he leans on a system with rules and regulations, rather than inspiration, to accomplish his agenda. Because the system has drowned inspiration into a debateable characteristic of a president, we don't even know what we want in a leader anymore.

An ideal president needs both: an agenda and inspiration, the fortitude to have people stick with his agenda when things are difficult. We’re not used to this because our current president has an agenda not many people agree with, so he executes his authority to make people comply. Without executing a heavy autocratic hand, an ideal president can do one of two things: give inspiring speeches that make people think he is the man or create an agenda that gets people excited.

Obama can talk, but I haven't changed my course of life because of his gameplan. America needs a person who can do both. Until that time comes, I'll take my chances with the guy who gives me half of what I want. Yeah, I'm an Obama man.