“Today, a prominent American man will stand before an attentive crowd and outline his initiatives for the year ahead. His words will spawn a torrent of commentary and cause many to re-evaluate their own plans for the next year,” The Oregonian Editorial Board writes for The Oregonian. “Yes, when Steve Jobs tells the Apple apostles about his plans for a new tablet computer, it will be the event of the technology year. Oh, and the president of the United States will give his State of the Union speech this evening.”
“The coincidental synchronization between Jobs’ address to a San Francisco audience and Barack Obama’s address to the American people provides an occasion for an instructive comparison,” The Oregonian Editorial Board writes.
“One year into Obama’s presidency, it’s safe to predict that his words will be greeted with less over-the-top enthusiasm than those uttered by Jobs. There’s a Mosaic quality to Jobs’ choreographed presentations, as he descends from the mountaintop to address the faithful. This year, the simile is even more apt, as he will deliver a tablet or two,” The Oregonian Editorial Board writes. “Obama, if anything, is overexposed. One day he is in Copenhagen, the next Youngstown. He sits down with Grist magazine and with David Letterman. There is, for a sentient American citizen, no escaping the thoughts of the president. Perhaps a little more mystery — or at least, the heads-down pursuit of a concrete, achievable goal — would serve his purposes well.”
“Here’s another telling contrast between the management styles of these two American leaders: Obama’s White House today is expected to discuss terms of a partial, three-year freeze on discretionary spending by the government, apparently in response to the rising popular concern about the federal deficit and mounting debt,” The Oregonian Editorial Board writes. “But only a year ago, the president told America that ‘only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.'”
“Granted, conditions change with the times, but you won’t hear such head-snapping reversals from Apple,” The Oregonian Editorial Board writes. “Apple is very good about exuding a sense of certainty and resolve, even when internal debates are raging. It’s good at sending a steady signal and about keeping partners in line and on message. Nothing could be less like the ‘Team of Rivals’ style that Obama has embraced.”
Read more in The Oregonian Editorial Board’s full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: On a related note, FOXNews.com is conducting a poll asking, “Which Do You Care About More: Apple Tablet Announcement or the State of the Union?”
Current tallies:
41% – Apple, of course! Invention and innovation will fix America. Wake up, Mr. President.
39% – Neither, of course! Just another gadget, just another Obama speech. Maybe I’ll go see Avatar — again!
13% – Both, of course! This might be technology that changes our lives, and I want to know what Obama has up his sleeve this time.
5% – Obama, of course! This is about fixing America — who cares about yet another expensive gadget.
2% – Other.
Vote here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Politics aside, it will be amazing to hear these two speak today. I’m not sure if Jobs has the same eloquency as Obama, but no one puts on a better show than Jobs. Hopefully they’ll be equally great and this nation can move forward to bigger and better things.
Steve Jobs for Technology Czar!
One big difference. Steve Jobs can fire any fool that tries to stop Apple’s progress. Obama is dependent on us sending reasonable people who are willing to actually represent our interests. I have no doubts Obamas passion and goals for the average American are good. He just hasn’t been willing to go for the political throat of those who stand in his way. That is sad.
Obama is a Marxist, Jobs is simply a deluded liberal.
My very best wishes go out to both gentlemen!
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Our first idiot only 19 minutes after first post.
Rising popular concern about a 12 trillion dollar debt. Let’s hope so.
Steve Jobs under-promises, over-delivers, keeps focus, simplifies problems, can inspire while unscripted, works hard, delivers a quality product without going broke. Obama on the other hand…
One makes money. One takes money
jaundiced, that’s what I thought when I read your post.
Have a nice day.
Obama hasn’t reversed anything. This so-called “Freeze” is anything but. This would freeze the budgets of various departments at the 2009 level for three years. Sounds good on the surface, right? How soon we forget that those same budgets were increased up to 33% in 2009 from the 2008 level. Normally those “temporary” increases would have been backed down in 2010. So Obama’s slight of hand is doing an end round around these reductions to the temporary budget increases by freezing those budgets at the artificially high levels imposed in 2009, thereby actually increasing government spending for the next three years. Great. Thanks a lot. Thanks for putting the American people ahead of your own self serving agendas Obama.
I’m no Obama supporter but your statement, sadly, is a reflection on pretty much ALL politicians.
“Politics aside, it will be amazing to hear these two speak today.”
No, one man will speak to us. The other will read scripted words from a set of teleprompters.
And what the fsck is “amazing” about hearing Obama over deliver on his latest set of half assed promises? Even his own base doesn’t have faith in him anymore because they’re finally beginning to realize that he’s a poor excuse for a leader. Soon he’ll only be left with morons who think it’s “amazing” to hear him read from his teleprompters for the 145th time.
I enjoy MDN, but I would enjoy it more if they avoided unnecessarily introducing politics into the discussion.
Jobs also does not have to contend with an aggressive and destructive opposition in his company. No democracy either.
That tends to make it slightly easier to send a coherent message – at a cost which may be easy to bear in case of Apple, but with an entire country that’s a bit of a different matter…
Obama polished, no substance
Jobs authentic, no marketing Bs
On a related note, FOXNews.com is conducting a poll asking, “Which Do You Care About More: Apple Tablet Announcement or the State of the Union?”
Who cares about FOX”News”?
This political trolling is getting rather tiresome.
Steve Jobs is going to do a lot better at what he does than Barack Obama.
Check out:
http://www.itabletnow.com
for more info.
Jeez the keynote brought the whiny a$$holes out today.
Comparing an organazation run form the top down, with every person hand-picked by management to do the exact job they want is difficult to compare to a bunch of politicians who were elected to represent disparate groups of people, who then head into a system of amazingly nizzare rules, practices and closed door decision making to try to serve their constituents – all designed by our founders to be as slow and inefficient as possible in order to make sure no one and no group be came a tyrant.
Representative democracy automatically means you will not get what you want because everything is a compromise – and learning to live with a leader that doesn’t represent your every interest is a known part of this system, one that people forgot as the “me culture” rose up in the ’80s. You do not get to dictate policies to the government in exchange for your vote – this goes for liberals and conservatives alike. Let your representatives do their jobs of making compromises, or we will have this partisan mud slinging ruling over everything for another 20 years.
If only the White House’s mp3 player hadn’t had such a bad user interface. Their VP music store is actually quite good.
Meanwhile, Steve Jobs continues to be pigheaded about the Missile Defense Shield. [sigh]
So they’re asking whether you care more about your country or the announcement of a piece of consumer electronics.
If the answer is Apple, what FNC’s viewers are saying is that they don’t care about the country and that there is nothing that the President could say or do to change their mind (for want of a better word).
Well, if you don’t care and you don’t want to know, stop fscking whining and leave the running of the country to grown-ups.
Hey, you got your politics in my business…
No, you got your business in my politics…
I can’t believe the two are being compared. Considering Jobs’ decisions don’t affect life and death and he pretty much can do anything he want…
Hats off to them both. They deserve respect whether you agree with them all the time or not. Apple’s results speak for themselves. The USA, a bigger ship to steer, will require more patience before it’s back on an even keel. Are we not in a better position today than we were in autumn 2008???
Both leaders have accomplished a lot of good for their respective organizations and made plenty of mistakes along the way too. Everyone must admit that Jobs has a superb team working together (hand-picked), whereas Obama has much greater constraints, a team (mostly elected or inherited) that is far from united, and so many inherited messes that it would be impossible for any administration to clean them all up in 4-8 years, let alone a single year.
With all the vitriol aimed at Obama, it’s worth pointing out that 1) your investments have miraculously recovered from the greatest slide in your lifetime under Obama’s watch, and 2) he’s actually working in your best interest to claw back your hard-earned dollars from the self-serving fat cats on Wall St and in the Insurance mob. I don’t agree with Obama at least half the time, but in total, he is performing in America’s best interest at least as well as any president in the last 50 years. This is coming from my independent Republican AND Democrat-hating, fiscally conservative, socially progressive/libertarian point of view.
No human, including Jobs, would look good when sitting in Obama’s position. The POTUS (every one) is a big target for scorn by insider schemers and loudmouth/small brain “Joe Plumber” dunderheads alike. In a vain attempt to protect their tax loopholes and medical profiteering schemes, K-street is pumping out more misleading negative press against the current administration than ever before. As usual, shallow thinkers who are disgruntled about anything just eat it all up. How easy it is to blame the president instead of the real culprits of the malaise. Thankfully, the only criticisms Jobs seems to get are 1) he has too many fans, and 2) for those cheapskates, they think Apple product have to high of an initial purchase price (ignoring, of course, their long-term value).
So while Jobs competes against a few relatively unimaginative if not incompetent companies, Obama is constantly required to defend himself against things that he hasn’t even said or done. National politics really has nothing to do with shallow “liberal” or “conservative” labels, it’s all about the mighty corporate dollar. The only difference between the corrupt D and R parties are the companies that back them. The corporate masters of the puppet parties are more to blame for the gridlock in DC and the present fiscal pain felt in the lower and middle classes than Bush or Obama ever could be. Corporate America hires and fires, not Obama. Directly or indirectly, corporate America has more direct influence on your health coverage, interest rates, cost of living, and so forth. Don’t blame one person for unemployment or for your local bank refusing to loan because they were busy for the last decade gambling in the derivatives markets.
In the contrasting pleasurable position of corporate leadership, all sins are forgiven if you hit your quarterly numbers or at least offer admirable products. Jobs hits his numbers every quarter not only due to his stellar leadership, but also because of the aforesaid team that executes very well.
Obama naysayers: Please cite a specific law or executive action of the last year that you disagree with that was started on Obama’s watch. I’m truly interested to know the source of the haterade. I hate the fiscal mess we’re in even more than you, but that’s the Paulson/Geitner/Bernake/Wall St. mess. Not much Obama could have done, especially when both corrupt parties were pushing for the Fed to bail out their friends in 2008, months before Obama was sworn in.
At least one speaker will be telling the truth and exceed expectations!!!