A Cultured White House
Over the past several weeks we’ve shared some articles and commentary on the increasing importance of international life experience for today’s business and political leaders. The most recent Newsweek has an excellent article on exactly the subject, focusing on several members of President Obama’s team: Timothy Geithner, Valerie Jarrett, Marine Gen. James L. Jones and Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration. We all know President Obama’s international history. In fact, he mentioned in his first TV interview with Al-Arabiya that he has Muslim family members and spent years living in the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia.
The article goes on to expand on how these appointees feel their international life experience has enhanced “their view of world events” and, thus, their qualifications for the critical roles they now fill.
General James Jones, President Obama’s National Security Adviser, describes what it is like to live abroad: “You develop a fine ear for listening to nuance, and to what it is people are saying, but also how they are saying it…You have to be able to look at the same problem through different prisms to be…successful in the international environment.”
Mike
