Who is Prepared to be President? Nobody
DENVER — Is Barack Obama prepared to be president? No. Neither is John McCain.
I have written about 12 pounds of books on the presidency over the past 22 years, three long studies that focused on the day-to-day work of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. This is the most important thing I learned in doing that, a paragraph at the end of the introduction to "President Kennedy: Profile of Power":
"John F. Kennedy was one of only 42 men who truly knew what it is like to be president. He was not prepared for it, but I doubt that anyone ever was or ever will be. The job is sui generis. The presidency is an act of faith."
The Kennedy book was published during the presidency of Bill Clinton, so now 43 men know. Obama, as I said, is obviously not one of them. But in praise of his acceptance speech here after winning the Democratic nomination, I did think the senator from Illinois, four years older than Kennedy was when he was inaugurated, showed he had a clue when he said:
"We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past."
That is not a particularly graceful or articulate line, but it is the most important fact about being president. The toughest job in the world is essentially reactive. The president does not run the country and is not paid by the hour. He is there to respond to events unanticipated: bizarre attacks on New York City, the blockade of a European city occupied by American troops, the rising of young black men and women against legal segregation, civil wars and genocides in places we never knew existed, the shelling of an American fort off South Carolina by other Americans.
Presidents are alone, facing the unknown. The job is not about running the country; it is about leading the nation in unexpected crisis or danger. No one remembers whether Lincoln balanced the budget.
Obama touched on what we anticipate will be the issues faced by the next president, as McCain will this week: a fading economy and place in the world, terrorism, health care, climate change. All important, critical, even, but no one knows what will be the issue that defines the next president. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated about defending Quemoy and Matsu, two islands off what we then called "Red China," but Kennedy's presidency was defined by surprising events in the Cold War against communism, and by civil rights and a civil war in what was called French Indo-China.
And if you are interested in what being president is like, look at the day 45 years ago, Aug. 28, 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That made Kennedy realize that his historical destiny would be to put the government on the side of a minority, no small thing in a democracy of majority rule. Until that day, Kennedy had never allowed himself to be photographed with King, who was seen, rather suspiciously, as a man of the left.
That day, he invited the black minister to the White House. Waiting for King to arrive, Kennedy met with the National Security Council and signed off on a plot to depose President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, an action that turned that far country into an American military colony — an action that led to disaster.
That is what it was like to president. No one, least of all Kennedy, knew. In the end, we choose a president on our own sense of character and judgment. In the end, it is not about the candidate; it is about the character and judgment of the American people. We decide. It is a great gamble. Then, the president's real job is to bring out the best in us.
Column Archive
A Vote for Elitism
NEW YORK — If you care about the United States and care about swimming — I happen to care about both — who do you want representing you, Michael Phelps or "one of us"?
Broke and Broken in America
SAG HARBOR, N.Y. — Coming home after working abroad for a couple of months means looking at mountains — of mail. But a lot of it is from banks offering credit cards and from politicians offering salvation, both for a price. You can throw that stuff out without opening any of it.
McCain and Obama: Different Kinds of Men
PARIS — In comments that will be little noted nor long remembered, Barack Obama and John McCain each talked recently about what it was like running for president — and, thus, about what kind of president each would be.
Obama Has Landed Safely
PARIS — This was one of four Obama headlines last Friday in Le Figaro, the conservative newspaper whose favorite conservative is President Nicolas Sarkozy:
"Sarkozy: 'Obama? C'est mon copain!" ('Obama? He's my buddy!")
Mr. Obama Visits the World
PARIS — "Alors," said a gendarme watching President John F. Kennedy step off Air Force One at Orly Airport on May 31, 1961, "he's a real all-American boy, that one."
The Tergiversation of Barack Obama
PARIS — A friend of mine, Don Singleton, a talented writer of impeccable liberal soul, sent me a note last Tuesday — if e-mail can be called a "note" — saying this:
The Year of Living Patriotically
For me at least, celebrating the Fourth of July abroad has always been a special thrill. Whatever your political views and opinions of our leaders of the moment, you feel a physical and vibrant tie to the land of your birth, to the ideas that shaped your own brand of patriotism, your inescapable, prideful Americanism, your bond to other Americans who find themselves in Paris or Stockholm or Peshawar, places I have been on my nation's birthday.
Welcome to Britain's Brave New World
LONDON — A prominent, aggressive and ambitious Conservative politician here, David Davis, recently resigned his seat in Parliament to protest a House of Commons vote extending the time a citizen can be held in jail without charges from 28 to 42 days. A national newspaper poll says 57 percent of respondents support his crusade, but they are almost certainly not telling the truth about that.
Which Side Are You On?
PARIS — Newspapers around the world have reprinted and focused on a story that appeared June 8 in The Observer in London about deep-seated racism in rural America. The headline:
"Democrats in Rural Strongholds Refuse to Give Backing to Obama."
They Love Obama, But They Can't Vote
PARIS — This was a nice place to be when Barack Obama finally nailed down the Democratic nomination for president. I happened to be speaking at the American Library in Paris last Wednesday evening, when someone asked whether I thought Obama's ascension would really change the world's view of the United States.
No Country for Old Governing
NEW YORK — I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that someone who was around President George W. Bush has finally said what has been obvious for years: The 43rd president is an ignorant, stubborn fellow isolated by a bodyguard of lies and liars.
The True Shame of The Iraq War
WASHINGTON — This is what I thought was the American social contract when I was growing up in the land of the free and the home of the brave: You could work your way through college, and if you got a decent job, you could buy a house within a few years.
Republicans Feel Heat of Burning Bush
WASHINGTON — "The Change You Deserve" may sound like scrambled Obama, but it was, in fact, considered as this election-year slogan of the National Republican Congressional Committee. It was rejected when someone noticed that it was also the slogan of a prescription drug called Effexor.
Whatever They Say, It's The Money!
WASHINGTON — When they say, "It's not the money ..." — it's the money!
After all is said and almost done, the numbers that are dragging Hillary Clinton to the end of her campaign are not delegate counts but dollar amounts. She is already more than $20 million in debt, and her campaign is costing something like $1 million a day.
Mc Cain, JFK, and the Health of Presidents
NEW YORK — A lot of smart people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how and why President John F. Kennedy seemed to evolve from an indecisive fool in launching the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 into the cool and calm commander defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
It's Race, Stupid!
LOS ANGELES — Face it: "Electability" is just another way of saying Barack Obama is black. The overuse of the word right now is a way of assuring voters, Democrat and Republican, that if they do not want or could not abide a black president, they are not alone.
Enough Already With The Fake Debates
LOS ANGELES — This campaign is SO over. It is hard to imagine a debate worse than the Clinton-Obama stand-up on Wednesday night in Philadelphia. In case you missed them between what seemed like a hundred commercials, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the shorter white one, and Sen. Barack Obama, the taller black one, answered (or endured) a road-show production of "Dumb and Dumber," starring Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.
