What makes for a great President?

Great Debates
1

This op is inspired by this current Obama thread.

In it I put forth what I consider historically has made for a great President. Past experience in Washington, expereince as a governor or as a CEO, did not make my list. And of course the retrospective analysis is always aided by a great President having served at a time that put historic events for them to deal with. In that way George W. had a chance to rise to greatness by doing well that which any President would have done after 9-11 but sunk to amazing lows by totally miffing everything else since.

In our election process we do not have that retrospective advantage, so here I am asking what features have prospectively identified future great Presidents, whichever Presidnts you personally feel were great? And of course who among the posible current crop possess any of those features?

2

If we could each choose just one characteristic, my choice for the list would be

compassion
I don’t know that I have enough perspective or scholarship to know why certain presidents were great. Sometimes the best of them did some pretty bad things.

Historians would say that the best president during my lifetime has been FDR, but my favorite was Kennedy. There is something about Obama that reminds me a little of both John and Bobby.

3

Wisdom. Not as in raw knowledge, but as in possessing the good judgement needed to make decisions.

Failing that, I’ll settle for competence.

4
  1. Good advisors
  2. The ability to appeal to the part of the electorate that did not vote for them

In some ways, the ability to change ones mind, but not make it look like a failure.

5
  1. Being able to find competent people, and being able to inspire them.
  2. Being able to communicate well with the public.
  3. Knowing when to compromise with Congress, and when to stand your ground.
  4. Knowing how to delegate authority to the competent people you collected.
  5. Having principles, and sticking to them.
  6. Being intelligent.

Looking at recent Presidents, Bill Clinton was pretty good at most of those things. He was a good communicator, he was good at working with Congress, and he was very intelligent. His record on finding a good cabinet and delegating to them is mixed - early on, he picked some lame ones. His first round of replacements and on were pretty good.

Reagan had all of these qualities to some degree, although he picked some lame-duck cabinet members (James Watt, anyone?). But he was ‘the great communicator’, and he worked very well with Congress.

Bush Sr was pretty weak in some areas. He was good at finding competent people and delegating to them. He was also smart. However, he was lousy at communications, and it was hard to know what his principles were,

George W. Bush doesn’t look very good with respect to these criteria. Reasonably intelligent, but he picks lousy people to surround himself with, and his idea of delegation seems to be saying, “You’re doing a good job, Brownie.” He doesn’t inspire confidence, his principles are strange in that he’ll totally stick to his guns over marginal issues (stem cell research), while completely caving on fundamentals (steel tariffs, prescription drug benefit). The only credit he gets here is his (so far) unwillingness to raise taxes. He’s also terrible at working with Congress, managing to turn members of his own party against him.

The problem with Obama is that most of these qualities are completely unknown with him. All we’ve got so far is ‘intelligent’, and some signs that he can communicate well. If intelligence were enough, Richard Nixon would be the greatest president.

6

The Vision Thang. Absolutely necessary for presidential greatness – necessary but not sufficient. W has got plenty of vision for the future, it’s just that the content of that vision assures he will never be ranked among the greats.

7

I’d add one more thing:

  1. Being a badass.

Seriously - would you fuck with Washington? With Lincoln? With either of the Roosevelts? The velvet glove is all well and good, but there has to be an iron fist underneath. One reason the U.S. foreign policy is in such a sorry state is that G.W. Bush strikes fear in the heart of no-one.

A president neads the willpower, the toughness, the meanness to stand up to foreign rivals, to domestic opponents and- most of all - to his own advisors and supporters. Look at a list of the greatest leaders in history, from any age, from any coiuntry, and you’ll see a bunch of very scary individuals.

8

The ability to unify. I don’t mean, “unify in a creepy fascist way,” I mean the ability to rationally understand that many Democrats and Republicans have at their core the values of compassion, faith, hard work, etc… and the ability to communicate that in such a way the neither position feels threatened. The best president is one who will listen to all sides of an issue and always show respect to the opposition. A great president will remind us about the things that bring us together, not tear us apart. I truly believe that is what is at stake right now… and what the U.S. needs in order to heal this tremendous gaping rift in our country.

This is why I do have high hopes for Obama. He seems to be the kind of person that can honor both sides of an argument without taking it to an inflammatory degree. He seems level-headed and rational. He’s a little conservative for me, but gosh darn it, I can’t help but like the guy for honestly trying to bring people together.

9

I’m pretty sure a lot of people despised Lincoln, especially with the whole armed rebellion on his election. He was seen as anti-slavery, which was not entirely fair, and that pissed off shitloads of slaveholders.

Obama showed he could work with Congress (albeit as a member) when he was in the minority during his service in the Illinois State Senate.

10

Maybe, but they didn’t despise him to his face. A lot of people underestimated the Illinois backwoods lawyer, initially. Most of them lived to regret it.

11

I’d have to disagree pretty strongly with that. One of the most openly compassionate Presidents we’ve had is Carter, and he was as dismal as an executive as he was outstanding as a charity leader.

The quality that makes a good President, in my opinion, is the ability to be an executive; this seems obvious and self-referential, but it’s not because this isn’t the quality that causes most people to vote for a candidate. People vote on what the candidate says (despite the fact that they all distort and lie to garner public affection), how they say it (despite that some of our most effective Presidents have been poor speakers), how he looks (seriously?), et cetera. However, a President may be the Chief Executive, but he can’t actually be educated, aware, and actively invovled in more than a few ongoing issues himself lest he be completely overwhelmed and ineffectual. (Again, see Carter for examples thereof.) A good President is one who knows how to pick good advisors, appoint quality leaders, recognize and accept good advice (even when contrary to his own personal beliefs), and preside without micromanaging or hiring on “Yes” men.

My personal pick for best President of the XXth Century would be Eisenhower. I could point to a dozen mistakes he made, and have some philosophical agreements (in hindsight) with some of the decisions he made, but the guy knew how to organize people to get a job done and then stand back and let them work.

Reagan was, at best, an indifferent President. Despite his charisma and pomp, he was very much hands off and allowed his people to run around unchecked, making the kind of high level judgements that he should have been responsible for. Admitting that “I don’t remember that…I didn’t make that decision” et cetera should have been a wakeup call for any advocate of Reagan. Whether he knew what was going on or not, he’s captain of the ship and is responsible for all that occurs under his aegis. Bush Sr. was much better than he’s often given credit for–his low-key style made his failures seem much more pronounced than his successes–and Clinton was full of guile and passion but no focus or coordination; I regard his Presidency as being vastly overrated and full of rank, impassioned amateurs who really blew the opportunity to bring the former Soviet Union into the fold.

The less said about the current occupant, the better. Let’s just say that he fails to measure up on almost every level. And everytime I feel it necessary to protest that he’s not quite the worst President ever, he goes and does something to completely undermine even a measured attempt to defend his few qualities. We could do better randomly picking someone off the street.

Stranger

12

I think #1 would have to be the ability to lead. Leaders don’t get to make all the decisions. The President actually has less power than most Americans believe. The President does, however, need to pull everyone together and lead them down the designated road.

#2 would be a strong, internally-consistent set of ethics that everyone understood.

#3 would be building a staff of knowledgeable, competent people; explaining their jobs clearly and unambiguously; helping when necessary; and getting out of their way the rest of the time.

#4 would be toughness, which includes the ability to bluff convincingly and negotiate ruthlessly with other countries. Hopefully, it wouldn’t need to be used, but it would have to be there.

Every president in my lifetime has been strong in one or more of these categories. None of them fit all four.

13

Indeed, if Bush Sr. had been more able to trumpet his own victories, he probably would be held as one of the best presidents we’ve had. Doing a straightforward good job and pulling off some tricky stuff in a matter-of-fact matter ended up making it look like he wasn’t doing much.

And indeed, while as Clinton’s intelligence let him handle each issue pretty good as they came up, he never seemed to have any goal beyond handling issues as they came up. Coming up for a new direction for the US in a post-Cold War era was pretty much up to him, and instead of setting us out on a certain path, we pretty much ended his terms with no clearer idea of what the US was without the USSR than we had had when he took the mantle.

But anyways, I have to agree that presidentiallity comes down to:

  1. Listens to arguments from all sides of an issue
  2. Ability to take a unique solution out of that and then clear a path for it to go
  3. Charisma
  4. Intimidating
  5. Has clear goals for the future, that only a single individual could ever come up with and see into fruition
14

I think Sam’s list reflects the qualities that I also would consider necessary, but I’d add that #5 isn’t just having principles, but having just principles. I don’t think a bigotted xenophobe who sticks to his principles, even one with all of the other qualities, makes for a great president. Otherwise, I’m in full agreement.

I also agree that we don’t know yet where Obama stands, but that’s also been true of all former presidents that I can think of, prior to them being president. We can guess, we can try and extrapolate based on their previous work in their respective roles, etc., but that’s still no guarantee that they’ll carry over into the presidency.

15

As far as principles goes, I rather like John Maynard Keynes’ statement :-

‘When I find I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do ?’

(There are many variations - but the jis makes sense to me)

16

How do you prospectively decide if a candidate posses those features?

(Btw, I’d also nix on the compassion as the sign of greatness. Great Presidents have had definite dark sides.)

17

OTOH, those presidents who have combined compassion with the other qualities mentioned in this thread have been our greatest (e.g., Lincoln, FDR); while those who have had all such qualities but compassion have been our worst (e.g., Nixon).

18

Current opinion seems to be that, outside of his criminal activities, Nixon was probably a pretty good president.

FDR was awful at working with the other side. Judging from some transcripts from the day, his government would pretty much vote for stuff just to piss off the Republicans if they could, and otherwise had no interest in hearing arguments from any other viewpoint. Not to mention his bid to be able to oust the judges in the Supreme Court. In a sense, he was rather like Bush, and ended up angering his own party in an attempt to push through whatever he wanted.

19

:dubious: Is this perhaps based on a poll of the people of Laos and Cambodia?

None of which mades FDR any less the greatest POTUS of the 20th Century. Who else even comes close?

20

Nixon also ended the war, made peace with China, started the EPA, started disarmament talks with the USSR, ended the Gold Standard, etc.

Between the Depression and WWII, I don’t know that you can compare anyone else against FDR. Who else had such a chance to show off?

In real-term effects, he dumped tons of debt into handing out money to people, and became popular for it. And even so, it ended up being WWII to bring back the economy rather than his welfare programs. Outside of that, he went to war, as pretty much any president would have done. Outside of being popular, he really didn’t do much but not fail during his term. If Bush could say the same, they’d be pretty much equal. Bush with more brains would still be a self-centered, short-sighted ass, not the greatest president of the Century.