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Obama: Managing His First Crisis

"President Obama has led a charmed life. Now it's time for him to resize his spectacular image and show that he can endure the everyday ups and downs of the Oval Office."

So says BusinessWeek in a piece by Eric Dezenhall.

"Throughout his campaign, Obama didn't exactly work overtime to defuse his larger-than-life persona (think about the quasi-Presidential seal emblazoned on his airplane seat and his campaign podiums). He will rightly be cut some slack for a little while because he inherited our domestic and international crises, but the voting public will not excuse him forever if he fails to bridge the canyon that differentiates being Zeus from being Homer Simpson.

Put differently, when you live by the holy man mystique, you will surely be betrayed by it as you sail into the lethal shoals of damage control. An apt cautionary tale for Obama may be found in the recent annals of business, not politics."

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