BHO does not think so I guess if this is accurate.

Here is a graph that illustrated the percentage of each
past president's cabinet who had worked in the private
business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet.
Here are the percentages.


T. Roosevelt..... 38%

Taft......................40%

Wilson .............. 52%

Harding..............49%

Coolidge........... 48%

Hoover...............42%

F. Roosevelt......50%

Truman..............50%

Eisenhower.........57%

Kennedy............30%

Johnson.............47%

Nixon.................. 53%

Ford................... 42%

Carter................ 32%

Reagan..............56%

GH Bush........... 51%

Clinton .............. 39%

GW Bush.......... 55%

Obama..... 8%

And A Word From the Other Side of the Story

We tracked down Cembalest to ask about his methodology. He said any effort to address the topic is heavily subjective, and he expressed regret that his work had been used for political ends, saying that it was not his intention to provide fodder for bloggers and talk show hosts.

Cembalest said that he did discount the corporate experience of the three lawyers we identified — Clinton, Vilsack and Locke — and added that he awarded nothing for Donovan, Chu or Salazar, even though we found they had a fair amount private sector experience. Cembalest acknowledged fault in missing Salazar's business background, saying he would have given him a full point if he had it to do over again. But he added that the kind of private-sector experiences Chu and Donovan had (managing scientific research and handling community development lending, respectively) did not represent the kind of private-sector business experience he was looking for when doing his study.

At 55%, GW Bush rates second highest on the list. T Roosevelt at 38% is very near the bottom. I don't see any corelation between experience and performance.

I wonder what his intentions were then, if not political. Hard to believe a writer of political figures would think what they are writing will not be used for, well, politics. I gotta discount his statement there after he realized that his conclusions were not what he intended. Kinda like when global warming scientists find data that does not fit their theory- they tend to ignore or downplay it- just as you two are for the same reasons.

No wonder so many politicians haven't a clue what it takes to run a business, the issues we face as business owners and continue to make policies that drive businesses elsewhere (be it to anther town, state, region or country). And then scratch their heads when businesses go elsewhere while simultaneously raising taxes (on the local and state level as well, not just federal) on those that remain.

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Back in TR's day there were fewer cabinet members. He also inherited his cabinet from McKinley who was more of an insider in DC than TR was.

I, for one, feel that having people who have only worked in government in the cabinet is not a good idea. I worked in private industry and now work for hte government. I can tell you that the long timers here in my agency have a different point of view than people in the outside world.

If a cabinet is to be successful it should have people who are the best in their fields.

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I call Rumpelstiltskin on this one. Past Presidents have been using people who were knowledgeable in the ways of business. Obama is the exception. In 20 years time, I think we will see that it didn't make a difference. Are you familiar with the story of Rumpelstiltskin? See the plot synopsis from Wiki. Just because you have competent business people and can name the problem doesn't mean it is going away anytime soon. Identifying the problem is so easy a caveman can do it. Fixing it, well..... You don't seem to take into account that the politicians have to buy votes. You can't get votes with "The gravy train ride has to stop.". You buy votes with "The gravy train will stop at your house.".

In order to make himself appear more important, a miller/commoner lied to the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. The king called for the girl, shut her in a tower room with straw and a spinning wheel, and demanded that she spin the straw into gold by morning, for three nights, or be executed. She had given up all hope, when a dwarfish creature appeared in the room and spun straw into gold for her in return for her necklace; then again the following night for her ring. On the third night, when she had nothing with which to reward him, the strange creature spun straw into gold for a promise that the girl's first-born child would become his.
The king was so impressed that he married the miller's daughter, but when their first child was born, the dwarf returned to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised". The queen was frightened and offered him all the wealth she had if she could keep the child. The dwarf refused but finally agreed to give up his claim to the child if the queen could guess his name in three days. At first she failed, but before the final night, her messenger discovered the dwarf's remote mountain cottage and, unseen, overhears the dwarf hopping about his fire and singing. While there are many variations in this song, the 1886 translation by Lucy Crane reads:
"To-day do I bake, to-morrow I brew,The day after that the queen's child comes in;And oh! I am glad that nobody knewThat the name I am called is Rumpelstiltskin!"[1] When the dwarf came to the queen on the third day and she revealed his name, Rumpelstiltskin lost his bargain. In the 1812 edition of the Brothers Grimm tales, Rumpelstiltskin then "ran away angrily, and never came back". The ending was revised in a final 1857 edition to a more gruesome version where Rumpelstiltskin "in his rage drove his right foot so far into the ground that it sank in up to his waist; then in a passion he seized the left foot with both hands and tore himself in two." Other versions have Rumpelstiltskin driving his right foot so far into the ground that he creates a chasm and falls into it, never to be seen again. In the oral version originally collected by the brothers Grimm, Rumpelstiltskin flies out of the window on a cooking ladle (Heidi Anne Heiner).

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Biased source or what? I tried to follow your link, it took me to a page that had nothing to do with the graph. The graph itself is linked to a blog post page, so this is some sort of uploaded crap.

http://blog.american.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/obamacabinet.jpg

The creator of the chart acknowledged that his work was less than accurate, however that did not stop folks from hoisting it up as the gospel. This will continue to circle the web, since the web is full of people that don't have the inclination to check first.

Let's do a little real analysis:

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Obama_cabinet

Secretary of State


Hillary Rodham Clinton (since 2009)
Private Sector Experience:

Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977, and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

Secretary of the Treasury
Tim Geithner (since 2009)
Kissenger and Associates Consulting

Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates (since 2009)
numerous

Gates has been a member of the board of trustees of Fidelity Investments, and on the board of directors of NACCO Industries, Inc., Brinker International, Inc., Parker Drilling Company, Science Applications International Corporation, and VoteHere, a technology company which sought to provide cryptography and computer software security for the electronic election industry.

Attorney General
Eric Holder (since 2009)
From 2001 until he became Attorney General, Holder worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.,[8] representing clients such as Merck and the National Football League

Secretary of the Interior
Ken Salazar (since 2009)
Private Law practice 1973 - 1986

Secretary of Agriculture
Tom Vilsack (since 2009)
Private law practice, with father-in-law 1975- 1987 small town Iowa


Secretary of Commerce
Gary Locke (since 2009)
From a poor family, worked his way thru school all the way to Yale Law, paying every dime himself, private practice 1975 - 1982


Secretary of Labor
Hilda Solis (since 2009)
She's fit your bill, no real private sector experience


Secretary of Health and Human Services

Kathleen Sebelius (since 2009)
"Sebelius served as executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association (now Kansas Association for Justice) from 1977–1986"


Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan (since 2009)

From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Melbourne, Australia with the Eastside Spectres of the National Basketball League,[9]

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Shaun Donovan (since 2009)
Not much of a wiki on the guy, can't tell

Secretary of Transportation
Ray LaHood (since 2009)
Mr. Lahood seems to be a fellow whose career has consisted of being a professional Republican politician.

Secretary of Energy
Steven Chu (since 2009)
After obtaining his doctorate degree, Chu remained at Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher for two years before joining Bell Labs, where he and his several co-workers carried out his Nobel Prize-winning laser cooling work

Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Eric Shinseki (since 2009)
Career military. On retirement:

Shinseki has served as a director for several corporations: Honeywell International and Ducommun, military contractors; Grove Farm Corporation; First Hawaiian Bank;[9] and Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.[10] He is a member of the Advisory Boards at the Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and to the U.S. Comptroller General. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the Association of the United States Army.[11]

Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano (since 2009)
Cabinet-level
Private law practice, 1984-1991


I'm not getting the "8% worked in the private sector" here. Looks like more scatter-shot phony rightwing internet bull.

"I'm not getting the "8% worked in the private sector" here. Looks like more scatter-shot phony rightwing internet bull."

Attorneys dont count...their business is not the real world, nor is being a trustee or on a board of directors. Shinseki, as much as I like him, has no business experience.

Far too few politicians (all of them) have real business people as their advisors or staff. Maybe it's because business people are busy taking care of business. No wonder they lobby so hard, it is the only way they get heard....

Link to the Original Publication of the Chart on Forbes

Notes
(a) A variety of sources were consulted for this analysis, including the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. In the rankings, I did not include prior private-sector experience for the following positions: Postmaster General; Navy; War; Health, Education & Welfare; Veterans Affairs; and Homeland Security. In the rankings, private-sector experience at a law firm counts for a 33% score, which I think is very generous. My wife strongly suggested raising this to 50%, but I refused.

Remember when Ross Perot ran for President? His followers were all for him since he had real business experience and no political experience. Even he later admitted that would never work.

There is a world of difference between telling people 'Do as I say or you are fired' and 'We need to work together on this.'

Perot would have made a great Sec. of Commerce, but in todays world if you lack political savy you will accomplish little as an elected offical.

Problem is that all we want to elect are people with political savvy. We will only "hire" those that can tell us to go to hell and have us looking forward to the trip. As such that is what we get. Even if Perot had made a Sec of Commerce, what would the point be? He'd still be over ridden by the guy up top with political savvy for political reasons. So what is the point there? Even if Obama filled his cabinet with 100% business people, they'd never get the job done because politics will override them all day long. As such, you can debate whether Obama has 8% of people that are business people or not. You might even be right but so what? Obama will still have to do the political thing and the correct action will either be ignored or whittled down to the point of meaninglessness.

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