Undaunted by Barack Obama’s
landslide victory last November, Peggy Noonan has returned to her abiding
complaint: Barack Obama is not likeable, he’s too formal, and too self-important
to fill the boots of men like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and now even George
Bush. Last week, in her column "The Presidential
Wheels Turns", Noonan compared Obama unfavorably against all
four former presidents still alive and able to attend the opening of George
Bush’s Library. Here’s how she compares the two star performers:
“He
(George Bush) thought he was luckily born, quick but not deep, and he famously
trusted his gut but also his heart. He always seemed moved and grateful to be
in the White House. Someone who met with Mr. Obama during his first year in
office, an old hand who'd worked with many presidents, came away worried and
confounded. Mr. Obama, he said, was the only one who didn't seem awed by his
surroundings, or by the presidency itself.”
Barack Obama, too, spoke sincerely of
Bush’s likeability at the Library proceedings, "To know the man is to like the man, because he's comfortable in his own skin.”
Setting aside the saccharine
screed Noonan employs in her partisan columns, is she making a serious point?
Are presidents usually more relaxed than Barack Obama? Has his presidency been
diminished by his spotty ability to help other self-important people feel comfortable?
(First, we should clear
something up. Obama was describing past-president George Bush—a man seemingly
enjoying his retirement—when he used that tired cliché about being comfortable in his own skin. Of course, we can’t
really know George Bush’s state of mind when he was actually making
presidential decisions. Today, memoirs from old White Houses uniformly contain only
lawyered regrets and assurances that every one slept peacefully when there was
time.)
The appearance of
self-assurance is important in public, especially in dangerous times. When a
president is speaking to Congress or just one of those Washington gossips that
Noonan calls “old hands,” he daren’t show nervousness. Can you imagine a young
president in the spring of 2009, asking strangers whether he ought to
nationalize the banks or reintroduce the Gold Standard? And whether anyone in
the room understood what Larry Summers was talking about?
We say leaders should be
relaxed and we note approvingly that leadership is a lonely business.
Politicking may be as relaxing as golf. But decision-making isn’t. Getting to
the right decision isn’t relaxing work. And it’s lonely—for one thing, because leaders
can’t show their misgivings in public.
After just one panic attack
in the House of Commons in the mid-20s, Winston Churchill never spoke in
public again without speaking notes. He would have loved the teleprompter.
Also, he acknowledged that he had misgivings every time he committed British
forces to action. President Dwight Eisenhower smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a
day during his tenure as commander of Allied Forces.
These nervous gentlemen were
not nervous in public. However, those who miss the style of the Reagan and Bush
presidencies should at least accept that governance isn’t the same as horseback-riding. Helping the helpers relax isn’t the job of productive executives or
presidents.
Finally, would Obama have
been more successful in his first term and now in his second term if he were less
formal—less presidential—in his dealing with his opponents in Congress and with
disaffected journalists?
America is definitely ready
for a female president. However, was America ready in 2008 to elect, ready in 2012 to re-elect,
and ready in any time in the foreseeable future to elect a black politician noted
for being “comfortable with his own skin”? A man, for instance, as inarticulate
and as teary as George Bush, as promiscuous as Bill Clinton, or as vulgar and
as manipulative as Lyndon B. Johnson?
