I find the most interesting part of the VF preview this:

“It got so bad last December that President Obama and Emanuel would joke that, when it was all over, they were going to open a T-shirt stand on a beach in Hawaii. It would face the ocean and sell only one color and one size. “We didn’t want to make another decision, or choice, or judgment,” Emanuel tells Purdum. They took to beginning staff meetings with Obama smiling at Emanuel and simply saying “White,” and Emanuel nodding back and replying “Medium.””

Bush would never have shown such terrible decorum at a staff meeting. He would have understood how corrupting it is to know that POTUS himself is annoyed to be dealing with these problems. It is the worst kind of morale killer.

But even more, there is nothing about Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Bush that would ever lead anyone to say that they were *tired of making decisions*. These men, and their aides, might have been tired from being up at 4 AM and going to bed at 11. They might have been tired of the hate they received. They might have been tired of making decisions that they knew required some people to sacrifice their lives. But the idea that they didn’t want to make decisions anymore? Unthinkable.

They were grownups. The decider in chief isn’t tired of making decisions. That’s what executives do: they execute.

I wonder if the brilliant folk who knew how bright Obama was will ever admit to themselves that choosing someone who had no executive experience was fundamentally a disaster?