The President and The People
In the New York Times' Sunday Magazine, Christopher Caldwell of the Weekly Standard, comments on the personality of Presidents, how it shapes policy and reflects the zeitgeist of Americans. He makes an astute characterization of Bill Clinton:
"Clinton practiced leadership as it is taught by management consultants and assorted gurus. “Leadership,” in this sense, is the pseudoscience of listening to employees or customers or voters and giving them back a mirror image of themselves. It is, as the historian James MacGregor Burns puts it, a “dynamic, participatory, mutually empowering relation between leaders and followers,” and those roles are easily confused. It was possible to love Clinton’s charm in the belief that it was somehow ours. When he fell into a sex scandal, of course, voters felt betrayed. But they weren’t really betrayed. What they were was embarrassed."
Describing George W. Bush, he reflects:
"Why are opinions so personal when it comes to President Bush? Because he has frequently sought, like the child of the 1960s that he is, to blur the line between the personal and the political. Posing as an amiable guy rather than a partisan politician has great advantages in democratic power politics. Even if not all of them vote for you, most Americans want to believe that their president is a jolly good fellow. But when a politician makes likability a substitute for authority, his opponents make hatred a substitute for opposition."
Bush made his election as much about who he was, as what he believed: ultimately the two were the same. Of course we hope that our leaders "believe" in their policies, it gives them a candor and genuineness that appeals to nearly all. However, we also hope that those leaders are able to "detach" themselves from important issues when necessary, to approach decisions with a critical eye in order to best evaluate complex and dynamic problems: in that, George W. Bush failed The People.
"Clinton practiced leadership as it is taught by management consultants and assorted gurus. “Leadership,” in this sense, is the pseudoscience of listening to employees or customers or voters and giving them back a mirror image of themselves. It is, as the historian James MacGregor Burns puts it, a “dynamic, participatory, mutually empowering relation between leaders and followers,” and those roles are easily confused. It was possible to love Clinton’s charm in the belief that it was somehow ours. When he fell into a sex scandal, of course, voters felt betrayed. But they weren’t really betrayed. What they were was embarrassed."
Describing George W. Bush, he reflects:
"Why are opinions so personal when it comes to President Bush? Because he has frequently sought, like the child of the 1960s that he is, to blur the line between the personal and the political. Posing as an amiable guy rather than a partisan politician has great advantages in democratic power politics. Even if not all of them vote for you, most Americans want to believe that their president is a jolly good fellow. But when a politician makes likability a substitute for authority, his opponents make hatred a substitute for opposition."
Bush made his election as much about who he was, as what he believed: ultimately the two were the same. Of course we hope that our leaders "believe" in their policies, it gives them a candor and genuineness that appeals to nearly all. However, we also hope that those leaders are able to "detach" themselves from important issues when necessary, to approach decisions with a critical eye in order to best evaluate complex and dynamic problems: in that, George W. Bush failed The People.
posted by Anon. at 10:15 AM
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