...a president's ability to confront chaos seems more central to the office now than it was, say, a half-century ago, when almost no one blamed Dwight Eisenhower for allowing quiz show scandals or Mississippi tornadoes to go unchecked. In part, this is probably a function of our having lost so much faith in the ability of government generally.
...which is a function of government having claimed to be able to do so much it could not do. See: War on Poverty, War on Drugs, etc. Stick to doing what you can actually do, and people will have faith in you. Not to mention the out-of-control spending and debt. But I doubt Matt Bai will ever concede the point.
For about 40 years, since the onset of industrial decline, Americans have been trying to negotiate an increasingly unstable economic and cultural landscape,"
The idea that we are really more unstable than 100 or 50 years ago is foolish. By any real measure, we are more stable -- look the level of general wealth, the improved weather forecasts (before 1940, New Orleans would have had almost no warning of Katrina), vastly better transportation and communication, the safety nets, etc. The changes of the last 40 years are minor compared to the booms and busts of the Great Depression or the 19th century. But we see more of instability when it occurs, so it's a matter of managing perceptions.
Rudy Giuliani on 9/11 was the example of what to do.
Barack Obama is the example of what not to do.
First Obama distanced himself, then he whined and blamed. Now he is acting angry. Obama is heeding the wrong advice. Anger is no good unless it achieves results. Otherwise it is impotent rage, which is weak.
If Teddy Roosevelt were in office, not only would he have given Bobby Jindal instant permission to build his berms, we would have lots of video of Teddy driving the heavy equipment to build the first berm with his own hands. (There is comparable footage of Teddy driving one of the steam engines that built the Panama Canal.) This would give people confidence that somebody had taken charge of the situation.
You can fake the promise of leadership when leadership isn't really needed. But you can't fake leadership when it is needed in a crisis. People can tell if you don't know what you're doing. Confidence falls away. Your political clout fades with it. For the very friendly Matt Bai to write this story about Obama is not a good sign for him. Et tu, New York Times? |
