I was thinking about the story (whether true or not) that George Bush once suggested to a fellow baseball owner that he might want to be the commissioner of Major League Baseball. The felllow owner responded that Bush wasn't bright enough.
Then I thought about jobs that Barack Obama and John McCain might--or might not--be qualified for, including law school dean. McCain probably doesn't have the intellectual style of a typical dean — and he lacks a law degree and experience teaching in a law school.
In most respects, Obama would be an excellent choice for dean of a top law school, but I wonder whether (before this year) he had enough administrative experience to get the job. Running a small Senate staff would probably not be enough experience. And we know very little about Obama's work for Project Vote and Chicago's Annenberg Challenge educational programs.
Thus, I would say that, until the last year, Obama's administrative resume may have been too thin to be an obvious first choice to be a dean at a top law school. Ultimately, however, I think that Obama's very successful presidential campaign suggests that he has more than enough administrative skill and experience to run a faculty of 75 people, a staff of 100-200, and a law school of a thousand students.
Obama will be tremendously relieved to hear this.
As a student, all we knew was that he rose to the position from his role as a professor teaching primarily corporate law. Did he have administrative experience behind the scenes among the faculty that we students were not privy to?
The president in theory supervises a bunch of cabinet agencies that have big administrative staffs do that work. He'd make major policy calls, and have a million or two people to implement them.
But Obama probably does have enough fund raising experience to be a law school dean, which may be more important in many law schools.
such faint praise, indeed
Here is another article on Obama’s work with the Annenberg Challenge with Bill Ayers. An interesting aspect about this article on Obama and the Annenberg Challenge is that it links to a analysis of the effectiveness of the Annenberg Challenge Here is the summary of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Experience . (271 page .pdf) (I apologize in advance for any mistakes in my typed transcription.)
IOW, Obama chaired a project that handed out $50 million in grant money for improvement in Chicago schools, and the $50 million had no result. That doesn’t say much about Obama’s abilities as an executive. It also stereotypes the stereotype of liberal solutions for social problems: throw some money at it. One can see why Obama has apparently not been inclined to volunteer to gush about his experience with the Annenberg Challenge, given its ineffectiveness. One usually does not volunteer that one handed out $50 million with no result.
The fantastic amount of money he'd be paid every month?
Whether you like McCain or not, he has plenty of administrative and leadership experience to run a modestly large organization such as a law school. Obama certainly doesn't.
But not everyone needs experience to do a good job. I've no doubt that Obama has the ability to run a law school, and even McCain can do it without being a lawyer. You don't need to be a subject matter expert to be the leader, that's proven in every field every day.
The only question about these men is not their potential as leaders, but the direction in which they wish to lead us.