Wanted: a President with Good Judgment
No capability of a president matters more than good judgment. George Washington had it. Urged by both Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans to side with England or France, respectively, in their seemingly interminable wars, he opted for the neutrality needed to gain time for the fledgling United States to gain strength to stand on its own. John Adams had it when he bucked his own party to make peace with France, even though it led to his re-election defeat. Lincoln had it when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, not only because it was morally right but because it swelled the ranks of the Union army with 200,000 black soldiers essential to victory. Eisenhower had it when he refused the pleas of his own advisors to use nuclear weapons in China, Korea, and Vietnam and then crafted a containment strategy that lasted nearly four decades, long enough for the Soviet Union to implode on its own.
By contrast, Kennedy lacked judgment when he allowed the Bay of Pigs invasion to go forward, without adequate policy review and operational questioning of the military and CIA. Johnson lacked it when he escalated the Vietnam War, a move based heavily on his determination not to be the first president to lose a war. George W. Bush lacked it when he went into Iraq without a thoughtful strategy for what to do after he declared "mission accomplished."
Judgment is not the same thing as intelligence. Candidates may be smart but presidential judgment requires a deep understanding of history, people, places, politics and the Constitution. Judgment is the ability to act prudently - to make decisions using what Aristotle called "practical wisdom." It is about being guided by the emerging lessons of experience, not the rigid walls of ideology. Washington was a revolutionary, but when the Revolution ended, unceasing hatred of England and unquestioned love of France were no longer prudent, even if they were still popular.
Judgment is a matter of how one structures decision making. It requires questioning assumptions and surrounding yourself with people who will disagree with you so you can hear all sides of an argument and multiple options. It requires protecting dissenting voices. Kennedy failed at this in the Bay of Pigs but learned it in time for the Cuban Missile Crisis, demonstrating that the ability to admit and learn from mistakes is a hallmark of presidential judgment. In World War II Hitler never learned it, surrounding himself only with those unwilling to question him.
Judgment also depends on character, which Calvin Coolidge rightly called "the only secure foundation of the state." Character depends on a strong moral center and ethical thinking. It requires the ability to strike Aristotle’s golden mean in one's behavior between extremes which are dangerous for any human and disastrous in a president. As Aristotle noted, we need courage, not cowardice or its polar opposite, recklessness. We need "right ambition" not listlessness and not a desire for power at any cost. We need humility in a president, not self-abnegation nor hubris.
Modern presidential campaigns and the media coverage of them make it hard to assess a candidate’s judgment. Sound bites, rallies and emotion-laden speeches are visible pictures of a candidate, but assessing judgment depends on what is beneath the surface. It rests on what is not said - as well as what is. It rests on how a candidate thinks and engages with issues and advisors and responds to thoughtful questioning. Modern campaigns fueled by TV, talk radio, social media, a 24/7 news cycle and ubiquitous polling have taken on the aura of popularity contests. Yet popularity does not necessarily demonstrate prudent judgment.
Judgment is accessible, but it takes work. Voters can evaluate it by asking if what a candidate says and her/his positions are backed with facts not just appeals to hopes and fears. We can gauge judgment if we know how to get past the disinformation that is spread widely in campaigns. We can see its absence in candidates who are overly ideological, abhor dissent, or demonstrate traits of recklessness, cowardice, hubris, or self-centered narcissism.
When Harry Truman recalled Gen. Douglas MacArthur from Korea in April 1951, the five-star general returned as a conquering hero, with a ticker tape parade and the bipartisan applause of a joint session of Congress. His military success was almost unparalleled. Truman was denounced, and his approval rating sank to 23 percent. MacArthur was at the height of his popularity, the epitome of a strong leader. Yet in openly defying Truman's instructions on how to prosecute the war to keep it from bringing China into it, he demonstrated dangerous poor judgment. He was tone deaf to the intricacies of international politics. His ego over-rode the prudence demanded of a military leader and the deference to civilian rule of the military under the Constitution. Truman's judgment was sound in relieving him of command, and he is now regularly ranked among the top ten presidents in polls.
Sound judgment is by no means the only capability essential in a president, but it is the one capability whose absence comes with great peril.
Photo Credit: britannica.com
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