In the Interests of Piling On
"I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents."
In one of the commentaries on this entry, someone points out a Frontline piece by Fred Greenstein that tries to identify the qualities of an effective president:
- Public communication
- Organizational capacity
- Political skill
- Vision
- Cognitive style - (strategic intelligence)
- Emotional intelligence - (objectivity, and the ability to use rational analysis rather than emotional response)
- The Will to Power
- The Lust to Expand
- A Ruthless Efficiency
- Strategic vision & direction
- Clarity of goal - Rove: " There has to be a clarity about the goal, if not always clarity about the method. For the clarity of vision doesn’t necessarily always lend itself to a clarity of direction, which is the second great characteristic – consistency of purpose but a willingness to change strategy in moments of crisis."
- A good legacy left them by their predecessors
- Emotional Intelligence -- Rove interprets this to mean internal self confidence and freedom from doubt
- A strong support team of qualified advisers
- A readiness to act and a comfort in decision
posted by Anonymous at 6:02 PM
1 Comments:
Let me back up from the rich, creamy substance of how awful a president this is for one moment to bring up a critical aside.
The combined expert and popular perception of his incompetence, disconnection and blindness to corruption is (finally-jeezus!) becoming the dominant narrative in American political culture; it is unlikely to be shaken at this point. And with it, the blind trust after 9/11 -thank god - has all but evaporated.
This turn in common belief may just be the savior of the Republic. It has put an effective CULTURAL brake on what was looking like a march to a kind of mushy one-party, even proto-fascist state in the U.S., where election manipulation was common and constitutional rights, and worse, ordinary cultural expectations of liberty, were steadily erased in an indefinite state of war. The government was driving towards a growing, Putinesque set of political/economic oligarchies, that are in practice essentially hostile to American democracy. (I should make clear that I don't include evangelicals or ordinary conservatives in this loose group.)
More than anything, I fear an American public that accepts a loss of skepticism. Democracy as a culture rather than a formal election mechanism utterly depends on healthy bullshit dectector, and I believe we WERE at real risk of losing it.
The cultural shift might explain the difference between how weak the Democratic party has generally been, and the sudden political depression the GOP is in. The political shift (as usual, I believe, with my fancy political science degree) follows the cultural narrative.
Robbed of popular support, even kings fall by lack of grace. And one of America's best cultural attributes, our impatience with fatalism, can allow a fairly rapid recovery back to a vigorous democracy: you even see it clearly within the GOP, as dissent replaces blind party conformity.
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