You cannot be successful in any endeavor unless you have credibility. Credibility and trust go hand-in-hand. Both must be earned. If you lose your credibility, you will not be trusted. If you lose your credibility, it is extremely difficult to regain it and to re-earn the trust you have lost.
You cannot be successful as a parent unless you have credibility with your children. You can easily lose credibility with a child simply by not fulfilling your promises or failing to follow through on your threats. If you threaten punishment if a child does not obey you, then you must follow through on your threat or it will become extremely difficult to discipline the child in the future.
A teenager who gets in trouble loses credibility. A teenager who has lost credibility becomes an immediate suspect when a problem develops in the teenager’s school or neighborhood, even if the teenager is completely innocent and had nothing to do with the problem.
An effective witness in a civil or criminal trial must have credibility. The prior conduct of a witness can be used to destroy his or her credibility. A witness who makes inconsistent statements loses his or her credibility. A witness without credibility will not be trusted or believed.
The chief executive officer of a company cannot be successful without having credibility with the board of directors and the company’s employees. The CEO will lose credibility with the board of directors if the company fails to achieve the results promised by the CEO. The CEO will lose credibility with the employees if he doesn’t communicate with them effectively and treat them with respect.
The United Nations is not an effective organization because it has no credibility. Rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea ignore the U.N. because it doesn’t stand behind its threats. It is virtually impossible to get the members of the U.N.’s Security Council to agree to impose sanctions on rogue nations. Even when sanctions are imposed, however, they are generally weak and are not enforced. Rogue nations don’t worry about the U.N. because it has lost its credibility.
In politics, each political party is constantly trying to destroy the credibility of the opposition party. Politicians spend more time and energy working to destroy the credibility of their opponents than they do promoting their own ideas and proposals. Unfortunately, attacks on the other party’s credibility seem to work. In my opinion, the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006 because the Republicans lost credibility with the voters—not because the voters preferred the agenda of the Democrats. If the Democrats lose control of Congress this year, it will be because they have lost credibility with the voters—not because the voters prefer the Republicans.
The biggest problem facing President Obama today is that he has lost his credibility. In my opinion, President Obama has lost his credibility primarily because of his own decisions and his own conduct. In short, he has self-destructed. The loss of President Obama’s credibility has been accompanied by a loss of trust, which is making it very difficult for him to control the members of his own party and to lead the nation effectively.
President Obama started losing his credibility during his first month in office by acting in a highly partisan manner after promising to bring a new era of bipartisanship and transparency to Washington, D.C. Within days after his inauguration, President Obama allowed the Democrats in Congress to develop a pork-filled economic stimulus plan behind closed doors and without any significant involvement on the part of the Republicans. The primary purpose of the stimulus plan supposedly was to save and create jobs. President Obama sold the stimulus plan by predicting the unemployment rate would reach 9% without the stimulus plan but would stay at 8% or below if the stimulus plan were adopted. Congress agreed to spend $787 billion of borrowed money based on these predictions. The unemployment rate today is close to 10%, which is well above the rate predicted by President Obama if the stimulus bill had not passed. President Obama has lost credibility because of his off-the-mark predictions about the rate of unemployment if the stimulus plan passed or did not pass.
President Obama also has lost credibility by the way in which he has pursued his health care reform proposals. In my opinion, he has made two major mistakes. First, from the outset, the President who promised bipartisanship completely shut the Republicans out of the process and repeatedly said the Republicans had no ideas even though the Republican proposals were well documented. Two weeks ago, President Obama finally organized a summit for the purpose of hearing the Republican ideas, but he has made only modest changes in his health care plan based on the ideas expressed at the summit. It is clear the summit did not represent a sincere effort to achieve a bipartisan solution to the health care problems facing the nation. The summit was too little too late. Second, President Obama has repeatedly made promises about his health care proposals that are completely unrealistic and unbelievable. For example, he has promised to expand health care coverage and reduce costs at the same time. He has promised he can cut $500 billion out of the cost of Medicare without adversely affecting the medical coverage provided to Medicare beneficiaries. He has promised his health care legislation won’t increase the federal deficit even though every major government entitlement program has cost more than originally predicted and has substantially added to the deficit.
The strategies followed by President Obama to obtain support for his health care legislation have severely damaged his credibility. In order to obtain 60 votes for the legislation in the U.S. Senate, President Obama had to buy the votes of members of his own party, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who voted for the legislation in exchange for the now famous “Cornhusker Kickback” and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, who voted “yes” in exchange for the so-called “Louisiana Purchase.” He also bought the support of the unions by providing union members with special tax benefits not available to others.
As a result of President Obama’s loss of credibility, almost everything he does now draws suspicion. He is like the teenager who is always suspected of wrongdoing because of his troubled past. Let’s take a look at a recent example of how President Obama’s loss of credibility is affecting the public’s reaction to his decisions. Last week, President Obama nominated Scott Matheson, a lawyer and law professor, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. It turns out Scott Matheson is the brother of Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who previously voted against President Obama’s health care legislation. President Obama is now trying to convince Rep. Matheson to change his mind and support the health care legislation. The White House claims there is no relationship between President Obama’s efforts to obtain the support of Rep. Matheson and President Obama’s appointment of Rep. Matheson’s brother to a lifetime position as a federal judge. If President Obama still had credibility, most of us would probably believe him when he says he is not trying to buy Rep. Matheson’s vote. As a result of his loss of credibility, however, it’s impossible not to be suspicious that President Obama is still buying votes.
Can President Obama regain his lost credibility? I believe he can, but I don’t believe he will. I’m not sure he cares. To regain his lost credibility, President Obama will have to change the way he operates. He will have to do the things he promised to do when he was running for President. He has been in office for more than a year now, and it’s fairly obvious—at least to me—that he isn’t even trying to be the bipartisan President he promised to be. Instead, he is a highly partisan President who plays bare-knuckle, hard-nosed politics and is willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish his objectives.
President Obama may accomplish some of his objectives, but in the long run I don’t think he can be successful without credibility. At this point, he doesn’t have it.
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