Bungler-in-Chief (an incompetent top executive)

“Bungler-in-chief” (or “bungler in chief”) means any incompetent top executive. The term “bungler-in-chief” has been cited in print in 1917, 1967 and 1987, but the term became popular on blogs since the 2000s to describe the president of the United States—especially George W. Bush and Barack Obama. A chapter in Edward Klein’s book, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House (2012), was titled “Bungler-in-chief.”
 
However, “bungler-in-chief” can refer to any top executive, in business or in government.
 
   
Wiktionary: bungler
Noun
bungler (plural bunglers)
1.Someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence
Synonyms
. blunderer, fuckup, schlemiel
   
17 September 1917, The Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), pg. 4, col. 2:
Luxburg and Eckhardt are eligible to membership in the Order of Bunglers, of which Count von Bernstorff is Bungler-in-Chief.
 
Google News Archive
18 April 1967, Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, FL), “Reward For Bungling: Promotion” by James J. Kilpatrick, pg. 4A, col. 2:
For the past three years, the bungler-in-chief, directly responsible for the Vietnam program, has been Poats.
 
Google News Archive
25 February 1987, Gainesville (FL) Sun, “The decline and fall of Donald Regan” by Mary McCrory, pg. 12A, col. 4:
On Monday morning he convened a meeting of Republican notables to shape damage control on the Tower Commission report in which he is said to be identified as bungler in chief.
   
Google Books
The Perfectionist:
Life And Death In Haute Cuisine
By Rudolph Chelminski
New York, NY: Gotham Books
2005
Pg. ?:
Neither Chef Jean nor Chef Pierre, as they lorded it over their terrified band of bungling apprentis, could suspect that Bernard, their bungler-in-chief, was something of a natural-born genius.
   
The Economist
America’s Democrats
Happy days are here again—or are they?
Americans are fed up with George Bush’s Republicans. But the Democrats look far from invincible
Apr 20th 2006 | Washington, DC
(...)
When they accuse Mr Bush of valuing loyalty above competence, he obligingly refuses to sack Donald Rumsfeld, the bungler-in-chief in Iraq.
     
Collegiate Times (Virginia Tech)
Column: Democracy: We deliver but restrictions apply
Thursday, October, 4, 2007; 10:20 PM
by Gabriel McVey, CT Regular Columnist
(...)
The American government has oafishly bumbled its way through what was a just and winnable war in Iraq. In the process, bungler-in-chief George W. Bush has estranged our allies and fortified the positions of the thugs, theocrats and tyrants of all political stripes around the globe: left, right and certifiably insane.
 
all the RIGHT thoughts
March 19, 2009
The Bungler In Chief
(A poster reads: “TELEPROMPTER Without it you’re jsut a stuttering idiot.”—ed.)
     
Tony Phyrillas on Politics
Friday, May 06, 2011
America’s Bungler-in-Chief
Michelle Malkin on the Bungler-in Chief: ...
 
An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
Obama – The Bungler in Chief
24 October 2011, 9:34 am.
(...)
While the President now has a new talking point for the campaign trail, it comes at the expense of national security interests. And it is the Obama Administration’s policies and bungled negotiations that are to blame.
   
OCLC WorldCat record
The amateur : Barack Obama in the White House
Author: Edward Klein
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Regnery Pub., ©2012.
Contents:
(...)
Bungler-in-chief