April 3, 2004
COMMANDER & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (via Tom Morin):
GWB: HBS MBA (Thomas Lifson, February 3rd, 2004, The American Thinker)
President George W. Bush is the very first President to hold a Masters Degree in Business Administration. Even better (or worse, depending on your perspective), his MBA is from Harvard Business School, where postgraduate management training was invented in the early part of the last century, and which to many stands as a symbol of the good, the bad, and the ugly faces of modern management. Harvard MBAs indisputably lead more major corporations, receive higher starting salaries fresh out of school, and carry with them more élan and glamour than the graduates of any rival business schools – facts which do not necessarily lead to admiration and love.
The comparatively small amount of attention paid by the political press to the President’s Harvard MBA partially reflects a generalized ignorance of, and hostility toward, the degree itself. More importantly, acknowledging that he learned any valuable intellectual perspectives would contradict the storyline that young W was a party animal, who coasted through his elite education, scarcely cracking a book. In other words, as the left never tires of claiming, he is too “stupid” to have picked up any tricks across the Charles River from Harvard Square. [...]
Accepting the premise that George W. Bush actually learned the lessons taught him at Harvard Business School, there are a number of characteristics of his administration which become far more understandable. Here are a few of the more important ways in which his Harvard MBA explains the way he governs.
Journalists needn't respect George Bush, but they do their readership a disservice when they ignore the very experience that seems to have produced his unusually successful leadership style. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 3, 2004 8:00 AM
One other key point that Mr. Lifson brought out in his excellent analysis is that GWB is a superb poker player. As he pointed out, one of the basic tools in the successful poker player's toolbox is to entice your opponents into betting heavily on a losing hand. This is precisely what GWB has done, over and over and over again, in his career, and I can't remember a single time that that simple tactic ever failed. In fact, he exercised it again just now when he bided his time waiting for Kerry to emerge as the front-runner, let the Demos and the media talk themselves into believing that Kerry was going to cream him in November and fool themselves into taking eight-months-before-the-election polls as gospel truth, and then, over the past few weeks, unleashed Karl Rove, $150M+ of warchest, and ads that, in essence, simply played back Kerry's most risible statements. It's no wonder that Kerry is taking every opportunity he can now to retire from the fray. I suspect _he_ never played poker.
Posted by: Joe at April 3, 2004 9:48 AMI am one of those who think that the Harvard MBA program is junk -- and I have more than a little direct experience to back me up, including an interview with the then dean that left me dumbfounded by his ignorance -- but I wouldn't just assume that anybody who went through it is therefore a bad manager. One of the best I ever worked for had a Harvard MBA.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 3, 2004 1:32 PMIt can be like Journalism school -- a shortcut to getting your ticket punched. It can also, depending on the student, actually teach something. One thing everyone seems to come out of it with is great connections.
Posted by: David Cohen at April 3, 2004 1:48 PMgenecis,
Don't worry. It's really quite risible, the way GWB's opponents fall for the same thing over and over again, and never ever seem to learn. It leaves one shaking his head in amazement, and makes clear that when people call Bush stupid, what they're really doing is projecting.
Posted by: Joe at April 3, 2004 2:44 PMOff-topic, but still relevant:
The latest employment figures just came out and there's been the biggest jump in new-job creation in six months or so - 308,000 for March. It's above-the-fold news on the Washington Post front page, and they don't try to disguise it with bad news, either, it's right out there in black and white:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46495-2004Apr2.html
Headline: Job Growth in March Biggest in 4 Years: Stock Prices Rise Sharply on Hiring News
Faces must be so long today at DNC headquarters that you'd have to tread carefully to avoid stepping on any chins.
Posted by: Joe at April 3, 2004 2:49 PMBTW, the graph accompanying the story in the paper edition of the Post is really startling in its presentation of just how dramatic the latest rise in new jobs is. It shows small losses of jobs each month through most of '03, then a tiny number of new jobs each month for the last six months or so, then when it comes to March - BOOM!
Orrin, you might want to write that story up. It's a good entry for your "60-40"/"50-0" file.
Posted by: Joe at April 3, 2004 2:54 PMIt's not that surprising that Bush the Younger is the first President with an MBA; Society and businesses didn't have an MBA fetish until the 80s and "Greed is good".
I would expect that many future Presidents will hold MBAs, just as many 19th century Presidents were born in log cabins and self-educated.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at April 4, 2004 3:27 AM