Here are some headlines appearing in major newspapers recently:

• “A Deeply Divided Supreme Court . . .”;
• “Divided Congress is Deeply Fractionalized . . .”;
• “The Deep Divide in Congress . . .”;
• “Obama Warns a Divided Congress . . .”;
• “The Sharp Political Divide in America . . .”;
• “The Most Divided Congress Ever . . .” 

These stories all suggest that the United States today is so divided along political lines that the politicians are unable to pass meaningful legislation and that judges (even in the Supreme Court) are unable to make unbiased legal decisions.  But does a sharply divided America necessarily mean that no meaningful legislation can emerge from our political leaders on both sides of the aisle?  I don’t think so!  Read more…

IRIf I were the CEO of a company and was employed six years ago to clean up the problems attributed to my predecessor, how would the Board of Directors react if the company was still having problems and I was blaming my predecessor for them?  Would the directors say, “Oh, yes, the problems were so great that we could not expect you to have fixed them in six years”?  Or would they say, “We hired you to fix things, and you should have had them fixed by now or at least be well on your way to having them resolved”?  

With the companies I am acquainted with, the board and the stockholders would not put up with a CEO who was blaming his predecessor of six years ago for the continued loss of money and the value of the stock still going down.

It bothers me that President Obama and his administration so frequently blame others for problems and the bad news coverage that go along with them.  For example, Read more…