What Makes a Leader?

David Brooks of the New York Times wrote an interesting analysis of Barack Obama and how he's handling the situation in Afghanistan from the standpoint of whether Obama has what it takes to be a wartime president. Brooks says that he interviewed military experts, retired officers, analysts, and people who have lived in Afghanistan. He says these people have reservations about Obama, not because they think he doesn't have the intellectual ability to process information or make decisions but whether he has the tenacity to stick by his decision. Here's a brief excerpt:

Their first concerns are about Obama the man. They know he is intellectually sophisticated. They know he is capable of processing complicated arguments and weighing nuanced evidence. But they do not know if he possesses the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it. They do not know if he possesses tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion. They do not know if he possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree.

 Funny how Brooks mentions Lincoln and Churchill but doesn't mention George W. Bush. Maybe it's too early to conclude that Bush was among the great wartime presidents, the jury pool being tainted by proximity. Besides, whatever good came of Bush's Iraq interventions (and many say much good came of that war), it's a fragile tree that could very easily be crushed.

For all of Bush's faults, I believe he still deserves credit for being single-minded, decisive, and focused. After 9/11, one thing and one thing only consumed him: the war on terror. This war must be won, regardless of political fall-out. And there was fall-out aplenty. He left office at about a 22% approval rating. There's something admirable about this willingness to be hated for one's convictions. I wonder if history will be kinder to Bush than his contemporaries.

Obama doesn't have the stomach, I think, to lead America in these dangerous days. He's too much an image-meister, seems to sniff the wind, put toe to wave and then scurry away, rather than plunge in. His admirers praise him for this cautious approach. His detractors view it as cowardice and political cunning.

Here's Brooks' article
The Tenacity Question 
New York Times
October 30, 2009