What makes someone Presidential? I am not talking about policy, since there is a lot (some of folks who don't agree with me will say almost none) of difference in policy, but that quality that makes you think of a president as the President?
Looking a back on the presidents I have been aware of in my life I am still not sure how to define that. We talk a lot about leadership. I have been really disappointed in President Obama's leadership. For all that he has achieved legislation that meets a carefully parsed description of his campaign promises; he has really not taken a lot of what look like strong stands.
It was, we are assured, a tactical move to have the president mostly stay out the process. I was willing to take that at face value at the time, but at this point given the disappointments in terms of other issues that really matter to me (torture accountability, full civil rights for gay citizens, EFCA) I don't really see him as a strong leader.
Still, is that what it means to be presidential? A strong man? President Bush, for all that he was a feckless clown, was willing to stand strong on issues. It got us into a totally unjustifiable war that is going to cost upwards of 3 trillion (3,000 billion) when all is said and done. He was so "strong" that he was wiling to tell the world, including our allies, that you are with us or against us.
At the same time he suffered from some waffling and showed lots of signs of being pushed around by his own party. Take the nomination then withdrawal of Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court. It was a goofy and overreaching nomination, but the backlash from his own party caused him to get her to withdraw. I think that we wound up with a worse Chief Justice in John Roberts, who is at least smart to go along with being unfailingly conservative. Ms. Myers would have been such a dufus she would have never been made Chief Justice.
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