Someone at IBD did a lot of homework to come up with this chart. It is, in its way, a perfect miniature of the cognitive dissonance in America today. There’s a President who can appear sensible and centrist when he wants to, and there’s a large group of Americans who are gravely concerned about the next three years, because they see a President who instinctively veers left and doesn’t understand the world very well. How to make sense of this?

Depending on your political point of view, the President’s cabinet might look great; for others it’s evidence of GIGO. What is undeniable is that a President’s cabinet is, in some sense, a reflection of his worldview. Thus it seems clear from the chart that President Obama’s differs considerably from the fairly consistent pattern of his predecessors. Over 90% of his cabinet has no private sector experience, a disturbing number when you think about it.

The private sector world and the public sector world are very different places, as statistics illustrate, and have different understandings of incentives and economics. Oftentimes, there’s little overlap between the two. So it’s not surprising that President Obama’s words, however well delivered, can have very different meanings to different audiences. In a sense, there really are Two Americas, and 2010 will probably tell us a little bit about which one is larger. (HT: Powerline)

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 9:28 am and is filed under business, Democrats, General, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.