ATC in Trump's crosshairs

MikeD said:
If he ignores people or advice, then I agree that's on him.

If his people don't properly brief him on stuff he has no first hand knowledge of (assuming he is open to it), then that's on them.

Remember when President Obama was doing the prayer breakfast back in 2010, and was talking of a Navy sailor and kept mispronouncing the word "Corpsman" (Navy medic) as "corpse-man" instead of the proper "core-man". It sounded really bad indeed. But benefit-of-the-doubt wise, was it really Obama's fault? No, not really. He's an intelligent guy, but having never served in the military and likely never dealt with that title or used it in conversationj, it's logical that he simply may not have known. His staff however did him no favors, as they should've gone over the speech at least once, to where the word would've been spoken and would be heard correctly. I don't expect any president to know everything about everything.

Now, if Trump is indeed non-receptive to staff who are trying to advise him properly, then thats another issue altogether. And one that will continue to bite him if he doesn't rectify it.
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If he is not appointing the right to prole to have him properly prepared to do the job, then it's on him.

Look at what's happening this evening. He did not consult his acting AG before signing an executive order. She pretty much says " I can not defend this because it has more holes in it than Swiss cheese." He fires her and suprise. His EO has hit road blocks.

This is just how he operates. He has focused more on how airports look than the problems with the ATC system. And honestly, this is a softball issue. The technology is already in place. All he has to do is make sure it's funded and implemented in a timely manner..
 
MikeD said:
If he ignores people or advice, then I agree that's on him.

If his people don't properly brief him on stuff he has no first hand knowledge of (assuming he is open to it), then that's on them.

Remember when President Obama was doing the prayer breakfast back in 2010, and was talking of a Navy sailor and kept mispronouncing the word "Corpsman" (Navy medic) as "corpse-man" instead of the proper "core-man". It sounded really bad indeed. But benefit-of-the-doubt wise, was it really Obama's fault? No, not really. He's an intelligent guy, but having never served in the military and likely never dealt with that title or used it in conversationj, it's logical that he simply may not have known. His staff however did him no favors, as they should've gone over the speech at least once, to where the word would've been spoken and would be heard correctly. I don't expect any president to know everything about everything.

Now, if Trump is indeed non-receptive to staff who are trying to advise him properly, then thats another issue altogether. And one that will continue to bite him if he doesn't rectify it.
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Oh please dude. This isn't the pronunciation of some word. This is meeting with executives of airlines to discuss aviation in America. If he doesn't know how much he doesn't know about it, then that's a problem and it's on him. If he knows how much he doesn't know and clearly decided not to do chit about it, that's also a problem and it's on him. He could have literally had anyone brief him rather than his freaking personal pilot. His staff, or any various heads of the FAA considering they're at his beck and call. But no, he's too busy worrying about his daughters clothing line and sending out tweets about Nordstrom. This isn't a failure of his staff, this bumbling mess of this meeting, and according to many supposed leaks the bumbling mess of the White House in general, is all on him. I mean for eff sake he signed the EO to appoint Bannon to the National Security Council without even knowing what it was he was signing. What's next, Bannon gets him to unknowingly sign an air strike on Iran?
 
I always find it funny that who ever is in the WH turns into the "dumbest" and "stupidest" person in the world. You don't become the President by being a bumbling rectal orifice. Even the Bamster was a smart enough guy to get elected. You just have to be the perfect pawn for The Illuminati, Freemasonry, International Jewry, Big Banks, The Greys,

So I read the story. Sounds like The Donald was having a lighthearted moment with some (evil) corporate (1%'ers) CEO's and trying to find out what they wanted to make more (dirty) money and streamline ATC/FAA to work for business. Which is the stated business of the FAA. Depending upon interpretation. I for one commend the man for actually acknowledging that there is a problem and it needs fixing. Which Nexgen won't do. Well it could have in 1999...
 
NovemberEcho said:
Oh please dude. This isn't the pronunciation of some word. This is meeting with executives of airlines to discuss aviation in America. If he doesn't know how much he doesn't know about it, then that's a problem and it's on him. If he knows how much he doesn't know and clearly decided not to do chit about it, that's also a problem and it's on him. He could have literally had anyone brief him rather than his freaking personal pilot. His staff, or any various heads of the FAA considering they're at his beck and call. But no, he's too busy worrying about his daughters clothing line and sending out tweets about Nordstrom. This isn't a failure of his staff, this bumbling mess of this meeting, and according to many supposed leaks the bumbling mess of the White House in general, is all on him. I mean for eff sake he signed the EO to appoint Bannon to the National Security Council without even knowing what it was he was signing. What's next, Bannon gets him to unknowingly sign an air strike on Iran?
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He has advisors for a reason. It's their job to advise and brief him. The president doesn't and can't know everything. What is Trump's job, is to empower and enable his advisors to brief him, and to listen to them. If he doesn't do that, then that's on him. That's how leadership and staff interaction works.

We're not talking about "one word", you completely missed the point of that example.

But like I mentioned before, it would be like me expecting you to know all the operational details of airport firefighting, simply because you may have punched a crash alarm in a tower cab a couple of times in your career and watched fire trucks drive around the airfield. It's a illogical expectation.
 
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MikeD said:
If he ignores people or advice, then I agree that's on him.

If his people don't properly brief him on stuff he has no first hand knowledge of (assuming he is open to it), then that's on them.

Remember when President Obama was doing the prayer breakfast back in 2010, and was talking of a Navy sailor and kept mispronouncing the word "Corpsman" (Navy medic) as "corpse-man" instead of the proper "core-man". It sounded really bad indeed. But benefit-of-the-doubt wise, was it really Obama's fault? No, not really. He's an intelligent guy, but having never served in the military and likely never dealt with that title or used it in conversationj, it's logical that he simply may not have known. His staff however did him no favors, as they should've gone over the speech at least once, to where the word would've been spoken and would be heard correctly. I don't expect any president to know everything about everything.

Now, if Trump is indeed non-receptive to staff who are trying to advise him properly, then thats another issue altogether. And one that will continue to bite him if he doesn't rectify it.
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You think this is a good comparison?
 
MikeD said:
But like I mentioned before, it would be like me expecting you to know all the operational details of airport firefighting, simply because you may have punched a crash alarm a couple of times in your career.
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No, this is more like me thinking I know the ins and outs of airport firefighting because i punched an alarm a couple times, and now being in charge of the fire station.
 
NovemberEcho said:
No, this is more like me thinking I know the ins and outs of airport firefighting because i punched an alarm a couple times.
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Like I said, if his staff fails to brief him, that's on them. If they attempt to brief him and he doesn't listen or refuses a briefing, that's on him. That's patent plain of how it works. Being that none of us know what that particular background is, we don't know if its the former, the latter, or both.
 
MikeD said:
I think both of my comparisons make the point regarding what a staff's responsibilities are, vs what the leader's responsibilties are, and when both apply.
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Those aren't comparisons. You highlighted their respective job descriptions but fail to correlate the two events. The failure to pronunciate a word to your liking is now being compared to a President who doesn't research or read about any topic coming accross his desk. I guess you're already tired of winning so much.
 
amorris311 said:
Those aren't comparisons. You highlighted their respective job descriptions but fail to correlate the two events. The failure to pronunciate a word to your liking is now being compared to a President who doesn't research or read about any topic coming accross his desk. I guess you're already tired of winning so much.
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A word to my liking? Hardly. How about pronouncing a word in a way that's respectful of the title it represents, or doing some research of the word or of what the job is that's related to that word? I gave Obama benefit of the doubt that he didn't know, because it's not his lane of traffic (and even defended that position to people who were rabidly mad at his pronunciation), and his staff should've briefed him beforehand. I give the benefit of the doubt to Trump about stuff he doesn't know, but caveat that with 1. his staff better be briefing him, and 2. he should empower them to and listen to them.

It doesn't get any simpler than that. The two concepts are similar regarding leadership/staff relationship. That is how it works. Whether you like the idea or not, doesn't change the facts of how things work in this realm. Whether a CEO, a POTUS, a senior military commander, etc, the concept works the same.

Think of it this way. In your airliner cockpit, if the FO knows some bit of info but keeps it from you, and your lack of knowledge of that info results in an violation or worse, is that your fault? No, it's the FOs fault. However if you as Capt has created an environment where the FO doesn't feel comfortable speaking up, or worse, you refuse to listen to what he has to say at all; then that is definitely on you. It's the same concept. I don't know which one specifically applies to Trump because Im not in those staff meetings.
 
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MikeD said:
A word to my liking? Hardly. How about pronouncing a word in a way that's respectful of the title it represents, or doing some research of the word or of what the job is that's related to that word? I gave Obama benefit of the doubt that he didn't know, because it's not his lane of traffic (and even defended that position to people who were rabidly mad at his pronunciation), and his staff should've briefed him beforehand. I give the benefit of the doubt to Trump about stuff he doesn't know, but caveat that with 1. his staff better be briefing him, and 2. he should empower them to and listen to them.

It doesn't get any simpler than that. The two concepts are similar regarding leadership/staff relationship. That is how it works. Whether you like the idea or not, doesn't change the facts of how things work in this realm. Whether a CEO, a POTUS, a senior military commander, etc, the concept works the same.
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Yea I still don't buy it. There are plenty of things you can criticize Obama for, not being prepared or well read is not one of them. The leaks that are floating around the national news of our President not reading his daily briefings is disturbing to me. As others have said he's more interested slamming people, companies, etc. that have direct relationships to his personal interests.
 
amorris311 said:
Yea I still don't buy it. There are plenty of things you can criticize Obama for, not being prepared or well read is not one of them. The leaks that are floating around the national news of our President not reading his daily briefings is disturbing to me. As others have said he's more interested slamming people, companies, etc. that have direct relationships to his personal interests.
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Addressing the word "corpsman", a Navy medic, as "corpse-man" or a dead person, is still very much being "not prepared or well read", when it came to that speech. Obama wasn't prepared and it showed during the speech. However...as I said before..... my defense of that is one of benefit-of-the-doubt that his staff didn't properly prepare him, and/or he didn't know enough about the word....having never served in the military....to know its proper pronunciation. It's not necessarily intuitive. Regardless, he still went in unprepared vis-a-vis the result and due to his staff. So, I haven't faulted Obama in terms of him being the causal factor on that one. More like an honest mistake that should've been caught before.

What specifically is going on with Trump with regards to his relationship to his advisors......whether they aren't preparing him or whether he doesn't empower them (or a combo of both)......I'm not certain. With no one really having spoken up about it, I don't have the answer for that currently.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Business-man and business-major trope #1: "Anything I do not understand must be simple."
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Next trope, businessman gets completely out of his element, sticks foot in mouth repeatedly, loses faith of everyone around him except the few people raised to go down with ship.

Third phase of book, either the hero/antihero swallows his narcissists and overbearing methods and grows as a person, managing some comeback of various degrees or he tailspins into oblivion and once removed from office he steps back into the small little world he was always a part of and can salvage and salve his ego with daddies money.

So, when Pence becomes president does he reappoint everyone and get another 100 days or does he at that point try to hose off the ship and put her back in port before it all sinks into the deep blue?
 
A good President surrounds himself with knowledgeable advisors with a variety of viewpoints, listens to them, and makes a decision. Bush I did an excellent job of this, but Bush II didn't, after his first +/- year when he let Colin Powell and others depart. It helped turn him into one of the worst Presidents in modern time, led around by the nose by Dick Cheney and a few others pushing their own agendas.

So far, we've seen most appointments, nearly all from a Trumpian stripe, and appointed by a man who doesn't like to hear dissent from his often-ignorant and pre-conceived notions. Along with thinking he knows everything and can pull good decisions out of his - uhhh- ear, this is dangerous!

Let's hope he is smart enough to learn from his failures, such as the ExO on immigration. So far, most of what we've seen is "Shoot the messenger."

Gonna be a long four years.
 
MikeD said:
Addressing the word "corpsman", a Navy medic, as "corpse-man" or a dead person, is still very much being "not prepared or well read", when it came to that speech. Obama wasn't prepared and it showed during the speech. However...as I said before..... my defense of that is one of benefit-of-the-doubt that his staff didn't properly prepare him, and/or he didn't know enough about the word....having never served in the military....to know its proper pronunciation. It's not necessarily intuitive. Regardless, he still went in unprepared vis-a-vis the result and due to his staff. So, I haven't faulted Obama in terms of him being the causal factor on that one. More like an honest mistake that should've been caught before.

What specifically is going on with Trump with regards to his relationship to his advisors......whether they aren't preparing him or whether he doesn't empower them (or a combo of both)......I'm not certain. With no one really having spoken up about it, I don't have the answer for that currently.
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Ok. I guess I understand that you won't concede that your choice for president has had several missteps in his short three weeks. I still think you're reaching though with the gaffe Obama made.

The second part of your text is a bit more interesting to me. Our President has had leak after leak coming from different areas of his organization describing how he does not take daily briefings or doesn't read them. What information are you exactly looking for before you can accept the fact our President is outmatched?
 
amorris311 said:
Ok. I guess I understand that you won't concede that your choice for president has had several missteps in his short three weeks. I still think you're reaching though with the gaffe Obama made.
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Besides Obama sounding like a complete idiot to every military veteran, with that gaffe? Yeah, his staff did him no favors. Plain and simple. Try to understand the conept of how staff and leaders work that I've been making here, it's not very difficult.

To the point of the thread, I don't expect Trump to understand the nuances of the ATC system offhand. I do expect him to be briefed on it, and I do expect him to listen to and soak up the information he's briefed on.

Concede what? That Trump needs to listen to his staff if he isn't doing so? Otherwise he will make mistakes? That's been made clear.

The second part of your text is a bit more interesting to me. Our President has had leak after leak coming from different areas of his organization describing how he does not take daily briefings or doesn't read them. What information are you exactly looking for before you can accept the fact our President is outmatched?
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I already wrote what needs to be done with respect to the leadership/staff relationship. It's not rocket science. Either Trump will do those things, or he won't. Either his staff will, or they won't. They can help or hurt themselves as much as they like.
 
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