The White House Experiment in Child Rearing

Fathers: Running the U.S. is like running a family.
I like Lisa Belkin's essays. Her piece "Father in Chief" recently appeared in the NY Times. It's because our new President seems to be such a good father that the comparisons are numerous.

"Like governing", Belkin tells us, "parenting is messy".
A good parent must tell the truth; shielding children from reality rarely works and leads to distrust. While pushing his stimulus plan, President Obama said the action was needed to keep a "crisis" from spiraling into a "catastrophe". Truth is good.

A good parent listens, asks questions, hears all views, and then decides. Obama listened and he called it bipartisanship.

A good parent admits mistakes like when Obama admitted that he messed up with several cabinet recommendations.

"Maybe we want to know that Dad can be fallible except when he actually is."