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Great Presidents who are still popular on the day they leave office make a very short list. Often it is not until much later that the public retroactively admires men like Lincoln and Truman, who were widely condemned by their contemporaries. The British political scientist Harold Laski had a relaxed theory about the elasticity of the U.S. presidency and the kind of Presidents accordingly to be sought. In times of crisis, as in the wartime presidencies of Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt, Presidents uneasily wielded the powers of dictators; authority that had been skillfully diffused throughout Government was concentrated in one person until the crisis was surmounted. But to Laski the "whole genius of the system" was against the continuation of such power, if only because, in James Madison's words, "the accumulation of powers in a single hand is the very definition of tyranny." Besides, once the danger has passed, other interests, in and out of Government, want their power back. Throughout most of American history, the public has thus been satisfied with what Theodore Roosevelt called "Buchanan Presidents."
In his classic 1888 study of American politics, Lord Bryce titled one chapter "Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents."
Between a brilliant and a safe man, he thought, parties would invariably mediocrity," choose the thought safe. Bryce; "The he likes a ordinary voter President does to not be object to sensible, vigorous and magnetic, but "does not value, because he sees no need for, originality or profundity or a wide knowledge. Great men are not in quiet times absolutely needed."
Yes, but who lives in quiet times any more?
For four decades, ever since 1933, America has been living with a presumption of continuing emergency. A vanity in crisis survival has developed. Eisenhower, that least energetic of Chief Executives, talked about crusades; Johnson declared a war on poverty; the Kennedys thrilled over the technological gadgetry of crisis situation rooms that made macho solutions more tempt ing. The public has come to demand outsize Presidents, and then to be disappointed with them. Think of it: this man might have to press the button — though for nearly 30 years no one has pressed the button. Summit meetings have been dramatized as if the drawn-out process of wary reconciliation can be achieved only by one particular, indispensable President.
The gap between the public's expectation of Presidents and the reality has grown so great that it can only be bridged, if at all, by a public relations campaign of pretense and concealment.
Television has given an unsettling emphasis to a certain kind of publicity skill. George Washington would have made a dull TV performer. As the first effective television President, Kennedy proved how important it was to be fast on his feet. This helped to set a demanding new standard that elevates flash over sub stance. The effect of television — which in one year can make an unknown face tiresomely overfamiliar — has been to disqualify able but uncharismatic men, and to make others (Humphrey and Muskie come to mind) glib parodies of their once more impressive selves.