Owning a Problem

"Two words, Mr President. Plausible deniability."
--Albert Nimzicki (Independence Day)

My earliest recollection of the Iran Contra affair was that of sitting in Detroit Metro catching up on reading in between flights. An article suggested that Reagan had no knowledge of the extent of the contra programs and deserved no blame for the scandal.

Ridiculous, I thought. Either the president did know and was lying, or he is guilty of incompetence for not knowing. Either way, blame for significant mistakes in any administration, be that administration public or private, for profit or not for profit, rests with the chief executive.

The bigger the problem, the more blame percolates to the top.

President Obama continues to shirk responsibility for administrative miscues done on his watch. Most recently, scandals build surrounding the Benghazi incident, IRS targeting of Tea Party and other groups, and record grabbing from the Associated Press.

The president has accepted blame for none of them. In some cases, the president and his administration seem to deny that a problem exists with their people. In other cases, the president points fingers at lower level people in his administration.

Indeed, apologists for this president suggest that there is no way that he should be expected to know all of what goes on underneath him. All of what goes on, no. Major issues that result in loss of life and constitutional infringement, absolutely.

Moreover, if the executive branch is so large that the president is truly unable to monitor substantial issues going on underneath him, then isn't this supportive of arguments for smaller, more limited government?

Institutions famously take lives of their own, relegating individual initiative responsibility to the background in favor of a collective construct. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see a chief executive break out of the institutional iron cage and personally own a problem?