When Barack Obama was a newbie president , there was no shortage of ambition or lack of confidence in the government he was about to lead . Government should be seen as a force for good , not evil . Sure , he told us , it needed to be `` smarter and better , '' but that could—and would—happen under his watch . Never mind that Bill Clinton spent years `` reinventing government '' with mixed success . Or that only 2 % of the American public believes that government can be trusted to do the right thing all the time . President Obama was convinced he could change all that with programs that would deliver for America—such as health care reform—and the public would be grateful . Instead , the President is living his own version of `` Alice Through the Looking Glass '' : staring down a rabbit hole of government bureaucracy and inefficiency . The government he has studiously tried to grow , manage and change has become his own personal nemesis . All of which makes you wonder : Does the President himself trust government anymore ? The scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs is just the latest in a slew of bureaucratic messes that strike at the core power point of the Obama presidency : Making government work . Consider the disastrous health care website rollout . The IRS controversy . Even the question of NSA surveillance raises questions about the role of government : Did the civil libertarian Obama allow spies to run amok ? The President is clearly having a running debate with himself over all this . About a year ago , after the NSA program was revealed and Democrats and libertarians started squawking , Obama seemed more than a tad defensive on government spying . `` If people ca n't trust not only the executive branch but also do n't trust Congress ... to make sure that we 're abiding by the Constitution ... '' he said , `` then we 're going to have some problems here . '' Indeed . These are not trivial matters . Health care is the signature legislative achievement of the administration , and a botched rollout made it smell bad at the start . Fixing the VA—and aiding veterans—is a cornerstone of the Obama presidency . And yet , it all looks as if somehow the bureaucracy has beaten the boss . It 's a management issue . So far as I can tell , the governing style of this administration has two extremes : issues singled out for micromanagement ( as in , foreign policy , from the West Wing ) and issues completely delegated ( as in , VA management ) . What seems to be missing is the in-between : the continual monitoring and early warning system that avoids presidential blindsiding . That 's the area in which most of the business of government actually gets done . And it can get done . The apparatus to do the nation 's business in a competent way is there . Use it , and manage it . That 's what chief executives are hired to do . Government is unwieldy and difficult and hard to tame , sure . But if your presidency is based , in large part , on telling Americans that government can work for them -- which it can -- you need to make it work . It 's not that the President is a hopeless manager . He does very well when he leads a hierarchical organization with a single goal , like a presidential bid . He 's top dog , he 's not negotiating with anybody , and he 's not trying to get people to do things they do n't want to do . In a campaign , for instance , they all want to elect the same person : him . But when you have to negotiate—or lead—people not related to you , or not indebted to you or who do n't agree with you , it 's a different story . Managing or negotiating with people with mixed motives ( Congress , anyone ? ) is not an Obama strong point . By nature , bureaucracies are hard to trust and even harder to tame . And if a chief executive is n't careful , it 's an energy-sapping ( and legacy endangering ) vortex that sucks you right in . Just ask Obama , who was government 's best friend . Does he still feel that way today ? Hard to know . But my guess is he 's a bit like Alice in Wonderland . `` I ca n't go back to yesterday , '' she said , `` because I was a different person then . '' Opinion : Obama is responsible for VA mess , but it may not be entirely his fault .
Obama 's plan was for a `` smarter and better '' government with demonstrable benefits . Gloria Borger says President is instead staring down rabbit hole of government incompetence . Comment: Borger : Obama can be effective in managing but needs to grab control of bureaucracy .