- MENU
- HOME
- SEARCH
- WORLD
- MAIN
- AFRICA
- ASIA
- BALKANS
- EUROPE
- LATIN AMERICA
- MIDDLE EAST
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Benelux
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Russia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Taiwan
- Turkey
- USA
- BUSINESS
- WEALTH
- STOCKS
- TECH
- HEALTH
- LIFESTYLE
- ENTERTAINMENT
- SPORTS
- RSS
- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Kenneth T. Walsh
Obama's Report Card (© M. Ryder)
President Obama never billed himself as a crisis leader. When he started his campaign for the
But since his election, Obama has been forced by circumstances to deal with one calamity after another. He is the rare president whose fate was to be plunged immediately into a vast maelstrom of bad news, and for week after seemingly endless week, he never got a breather. There was the financial meltdown that almost paralyzed the economy. The near collapse of the mortgage industry. The death spiral of the automakers. The recession that sent unemployment through the roof. Somali pirates who took an American hostage. The ongoing threat of terrorism. And, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Through it all, Obama demonstrated many of the leadership traits that served previous crisis presidents well, such as poise and the willingness to make quick, bold judgments and not brood about them. But Obama's actions have also raised lingering questions about whether his decisions were hastily conceived and relied too much on government money and power. In fact, since he took office in January, Obama has begun the biggest surge of federal activism in many years, including vast spending to stimulate the economy and other programs to rescue the financial, mortgage, and auto industries. His foreign policy seems to be a confusing pastiche of feel-good calls for cooperation combined with tough rhetoric toward the rogue nations of Iran and North Korea. Just as important, Obama has taken different approaches to the wars he inherited, slowly withdrawing from Iraq as he promised during his campaign but starting a buildup in Afghanistan.
Calm and confident. Yet overall, no matter what one thinks of his specific policies, Obama has turned out to be a more sure-footed leader under pressure than his critics had anticipated, and even better than his supporters expected. "He has a set of personal qualities that lend themselves to execu-tive leadership--that sense of calm, that sense of confidence, that penetrating intelligence, the ability to pick through complex problems, and a willingness to trust others," says David Axelrod, a
Axelrod sees two types of decisions that every president faces: "You have sustained, long-term challenges like the wars, and then you have short-term issues that arise."
In a recent interview in the Oval Office, Obama, seated under a portrait of George Washington, explained what is behind his decision-making process. He says that he draws on methods that have helped him succeed in the past, such as assembling the best advisers, listening to their counsel, and encouraging dissent. But at the same time he added, "I don't think anything prepares you for the presidency."
Obama said he tries to base his judgments on "information and not emotions" and echoed past commanders in chief when he noted, "I think wartime issues are always of a different nature because they're life and death." He talked somberly about meeting with wounded soldiers and the families of those killed in action, and, lowering his voice, said almost sternly, "They are paying the ultimate price for our security, and so you'd better get those decisions right. And I feel a much greater weight when it comes to questions of war."
All the while, Obama has used three principles to guide him through the tumultuous times, his advisers say. First and foremost, he tries to come up with practical solutions that have a high probability of success. Second, he wants to exhibit confidence at all times to reassure the country that he will do the right thing. Third, he seeks to communicate his vision in a compelling way, using all the tools afforded by the modern media, from the Internet to prime-time news conferences and appearances on late-night TV talk shows.
Obama's decision to rescue
Proving ground. Obama loyalists say that they saw some of his crisis-management skills during the campaign. Axelrod, who was Obama's chief political strategist, says: "As messy and ridiculous as our nomination and election processes are, I always viewed them as proving grounds in certain ways because there's nothing but pressure, and the longer you go, the more pressure you're under. And there were many instances during the campaign in which we were tested. No matter how much you believe in someone, you never know how they're going to handle that. And as much as I admired Obama, it was a revelation to see him handle the most pressure-full moments in the campaign. Whenever we had lost and were viewed as in trouble, he was at his absolute calmest, the most focused."
But Galston adds that, to be a successful manager amid calamity, a leader also needs "a clear and steady sense of where he is going and a willingness to take some short-term heat to get there," and Obama hasn't yet proven himself in those areas.
There is also the matter of Obama's toughness--or lack of it. "To be an effective president, you must be both revered and feared by your friends as well as your foes," says Ken Duberstein,
Presidential scholars generally rate two American presidents above all the rest as crisis leaders: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lincoln led the country through its worst crisis--the Civil War, which threatened the very survival of the United States--with a combination of perseverance, vision, and knowing when to be flexible and when to dig in his heels. For example, he was flexible in his views about abolishing slavery until well into the Civil War, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but never wavered in pursuing his goal of preserving the Union. Lincoln made many mistakes, but on the profound issues of his day, he came out in the right place. Says historian James McPherson in Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief: "In all five functions as commander in chief--policy, national strategy, military strategy, operations, and tactics--Lincoln's conception and performance were dynamic rather than static."
Roosevelt offers a more modern standard of comparison. FDR led America through the twin calamities of the Depression and World War II in the 1930s and 1940s. Like Lincoln, he was adaptable but showed resolve when he had to, along with vision and the capacity to inspire. One of his biggest achievements was mastering the media of his time to communicate directly with the public, including his confidence-building "fireside chats" on the radio.
FDR persuaded
Obama has modeled himself to a great extent on FDR. But so far, he has won passage for only one comparably big piece of legislation--a
Ross Baker, a
And even if Obama is able to pull the economy out of its slump, he is still pushing healthcare and dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which leads some critics to charge that he is moving too far, too fast. Duberstein says the country is getting nervous that Obama is overreaching by pushing the federal government into too many areas of national life and, at the same time, allowing the national debt to approach an astronomical
Many Washington veterans say that Afghanistan will be pivotal, and a big question is whether Obama will follow the advice of his military commanders who want more U.S. troops to salvage the war. "It's the biggest looming issue out there, and we'll get a glimpse of what he is made of," says Ed Gillespie, former
AMERICAN POLITICS
WORLD | AFRICA | ASIA | EUROPE | LATIN AMERICA | MIDDLE EAST | UNITED STATES | ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS
© Tribune Media Services