A President, or a Boss?

Once upon an electronic era ago, when it was dawning upon us that everything was changing--that business as usual was a way to go broke--it was said that it occurred to the people who owned trains that they were not in the train business. "Train business" meant doing what one was used to doing with trains, and that wasn't profitable, or sustainable. Trains hauled corn and coal along railroad tracks.

But was was happening was that trucks were delivering freight to warehouses, and great ships were bringing containers of goods to the docks from overseas. Airplanes were delivering fresh fish to Minneapolis every day from Seattle and Boston and the Gulf.

It could not remain a train business: a locomotive and two tracks, hauling corn and coal. They had to think of themselves as in the transportation business: a part of moving goods; not just trains and tracks.

Something similar happened this last week. James Lipton, who is the fascinating and perceptive host of Actors' Studio, was asked to watch and analyze the Presidential Candidate Debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. And what did he see?

Not a debate between two candidates, something like watching two trains. He, who is used to analyzing actors, and what they do, and how they do it, saw that it was a fundamental choice between someone acting like a President, and someone acting like a Boss. Romney, he said, was like an overbearing Boss, telling bad jokes, waiting for, and daring you not to laugh. Obama approached problems like a President, not a Boss.

And Lipton's question was, "Does America want a President, or a Boss?"

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