Presidential Struggle

Start of a Presidential Struggle

By Roy D. Follendore III

July 10, 2002

Say what you will, we are about to see the start of a Presidential political struggle the likes America has not seen before. President Bush has been doing what he and his supporters thought were the right things to do. The question, the ultimate question is if these things he has done were the right thing to do. I have it on good authority that our President has traits which are honorable, but the job he is in is special. It changes the context of decisions but it changes the decision makers as well. As President, a good decision can be wrong, simply because it is being made by the President. I do not agree with many of the decisions that have been made, but I also recognize that a decision and the way that decisions are carried out are different things. The President is a leader, not a doer.

The President depends on a mixture of internal leaders that will question decisions as they are implemented as well as act on decisions. If our President's decisions are being served by a group of "yes men" then he is not being served at all. "I want this to happen." "Yes, Mr. President." "I need you to think about it first." "Yes, Mr. President." "No, really, I need you to think." "Yes, Mr. President." "Are you thinking about it?" "Yes, Mr. President." The same is true for the Secretary of Government Departments and Agencies. "The President wants this to happen." "Yes, Mr. Secretary..." The result is that things get done, mechanically not intelligently. That is the nature of power within the Federal Government.

It is also the nature of people within these positions to take themselves more important than what they really are. From what I have seen from a distance, I happen to think that President may very well be surrounded by too many people who demand absolute knee-jerk responses from those that work for them. Generals tend to expect their will to be conveyed down the line because "God" ordained them to be a leader. This is exactly why it isn't always a good idea to completely surround yourself with all General minded personalities. You really need a few liberal minded people to soften up problems instead of jamming things down other people's throats. People like Generals because they are decisive or they would not have been Generals. "What is the answer General Bob?" "Attack Mr. President." On the other hand the opposite is also true. "What do you think the answer is Sam?" "Well, I have been thinking and we could..., or we also might..., then again we can..." Too many liberal thinkers can jam up any decision making process, particularly when you get them all in the same room. Perhaps the most important role of any great leader is to balance and maintain the balance of personality equations to keep that ball of "proper" decision making rolling.

All of this leads us back to the issue of good Presidential leadership. In the end, a good President is a person that ends up making good decisions for our country. Good intentions get washed aside because all Presidents are supposed to be basing their decisions on good intentions. It all ends up about chemistry. Has our President surrounded himself with the right mix of people to help his particular personality work for the American people? Will his actions be questioned just enough along the path of governmental progress so that things get done while not in ways that destroy Presidential creditability. There is too much information and complexity for any President, even a scholar like President Clinton to absorb and handle independently if this is not the case.

In the end, the decisions of President George W. Bush will be validated in history not just by the mechanics of his organizational functionality, but by morality, justice and integrity of his public servants. The tremendous political struggle that is building will be about all of this, not just the patented external topics that will be expressed by the press. You might want to keep all of this in mind in the coming months.

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