(5 of 5)
In the present atmosphere, no one seems good enough to be President. Perhaps one difficulty comes from a public confusion about what kind of crisis, or combination of crises, the country faces and therefore the kind of qualities it seeks in the man. The romantic longing to rally behind bold leadership, as if this were a wartime emergency with a simple, patriotically accepted goal to be personified in one man, is too simplistic a remedy for that messy complexity of economic, moral and social problems we all struggle with. The time has come to de-emphasize not the of fice of the presidency but the myth of the omnipotent President, reigning from the Oval Office, glorified for being lonely in his or deals when he should be judged by whether he can inspire in dependent men around him, can listen to divergent advice and make clear choices, and can then invoke the strengths of the na tion as a whole.
To recognize the complexity of problems that defy facile, masterly solutions is to reintroduce those qualities in which a politician should excel: an ability to discriminate between conflict ing arguments and pressures, a sense of the public mood, a gift for articulating issues and rallying support, an egotistical confidence in decision. Presidents with healthy egos learn to recruit minds better trained or more specialized, as Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy pre-eminently did. They borrow ideas but reserve to, themselves, as experts in the art of mediating, the prag matic political judgments of how far they can go and when.
Roosevelt more than Kennedy had a confident sense of the na tional direction. When this essential ingredient of leadership is combined with the practical knowledge of the feasible, the utilitarian art of politics finds its moments of nobility, and the craftsmanship of the consummate politician justifies his demeaning apprenticeship. Greatness? That is a description only to be be stowed stowed afterward. afterward.