What Strong Leadership Looks Like: The Example We Need In 2012

A year and a half ago, I was reading Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World From The Twenties to the Nineties and I was struck by this claim:

"Eisenhower was the most successful twentieth-century president."

You would never have heard anything like this from the mainstream media, from most college professors, or from very many people in Hollywood. On the contrary, all day long it is Kennedy, Kennedy, and Kennedy. This is because John F. Kennedy (35th U.S. president 1961-1963) had that glamorous, GQ image liberals think is such an important leadership quality. By contrast, Eisenhower came across as old, bald, and boring. It didn't help that he was a Republican.

Kennedy stood up for civil rights reform, that is, he gave emotional speeches supporting it. It matters not that Kennedy failed to get a significant civil rights bill passed through Congress; surely he would have succeeded in another attempt had he not been gunned down in Dallas, in November 1963. Maybe... Or maybe not... We will never know.

But Eisenhower, in the judgement of many historians, was aloof about the need for civil rights reform. Eisenhower sent an airborne division into Little Rock, Arkansas, to forcibly desegregate a school there, or rather, make sure the officials complied with a court order to do so. But he didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart. He did it to show states couldn't defy federal courts. Right?

Paul Johnson's claim about Eisenhower being the most successful twentieth-century president got me interested in researching this old, bald, boring, aloof, old president, a little further. Then, last summer, I picked up a new, hardback biography on the old man entitled Eisenhower In War And Peace by Jean Edward Smith. The book offered a new, fresh take on the 34th president, and sought to debunk fabrications and distortions about him. Among the revisions was new evidence, not new, but ignored by most researchers, that show Eisenhower to be a very active and effective president in combating race discrimination. Here are the facts:

*Eisenhower desegregated the armed forces. The previous president, Truman, gave the order and gets the credit. However, until Eisenhower was elected the order was ignored by the military. Eisenhower made sure they complied with the order and held them accountable.

*Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren, John Harlan, and William Brennan to the U.S. Supreme Court: all fierce activists for civil rights reform. Many Eisenhower appointees to the justice department were of the same ilk and would play a pivotal role in the civil rights fights of the 50's and 60's.

The book uncovers many more nuggets of reality that dispel the unfair notion that Eisenhower was aloof on civil rights. Part of the reason not much of it has come to light until now is because Eisenhower, unlike some other presidents, did not get on a soapbox and blab all day long about his accomplishments. He worked behind the scenes to do what he wanted and allowed other people to reap the credit.

Johnson's and Smith's work raised the stature of President Eisenhower in my ranking of U.S. presidents. Then, a week or so ago, I found myself thumbing through a reference work of essays on the American presidents. When I got to the essay on Eisenhower, the first paragraph stopped me dead in my tracks! I read it over and over to let the meaning sink into the recesses of my understanding. It got me thinking about the very qualities that make a presidency successful, and I realized why such qualities are sorely lacking in the current White House. Here is the text of the paragraph form the book The American Presidency: The Authoritative Reference (Editors Alan Brinkley an Davis Dyer):

"The Eisenhower Presidency [34th U.S. president 1953 - 1961] was one of the most unusual in modern American history. Both Eisenhower himself and many of his top aides had no previous experience in public office. Even more atypical, he and they had spent most of their adult lives rising to the the top in other fields of endeavor, most notably the military, business, law, and education. In no other twentieth-century presidential administration did the professional politician enjoy less prestige and influence. Despite, or perhaps because of, those circumstances, Eisenhower's presidency was highly competitive, effective, and successful, the most so of any presidency since World War II."

-David L. Stebenne
Ohio State University

Here Is The Rundown of Eisenhower's Other Presidential Successes:

*expansion of Social Security coverage to the self-employed and to the domestically employed

*the interstate highway system, funded not by the deficit, but by a fuel tax

*construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway

*the end of the Korean War (a campaign promise, fulfilled within months of taking office)

*stopping Communist China from attacking Taiwan, without using nuclear weapons

*stopping a war between Britain, Israel, and France vs. Egypt over Suez

*allowing Senator Joe McCarthy enough political rope to hang himself by bating him into a fight with the military

*curbs on union power

*cuts in federal spending which led to a balanced federal budget

*expansion of the U2 surveillance plane program, which later allowed us to discover nuclear-tipped, Soviet missiles being installed in Cuba, and pointed at Florida

*telling the Soviet Union to go take a hike when they gave us an ultimatum to evacuate ALL of Berlin (an ultimatum, which was given again to Kennedy, who meekly abandoned East Berlin, which was soon walled-off from the world)

The second item on the above list, the interstate highway system, had a greater trans-formative impact on the daily life of the American people than any other single domestic reform of all time. It provided many "shovel-ready" jobs that helped the economy rebound from a brief recession, and paved the golden age of the American auto industry. 

Have another look at some of the other items. Do you notice that many of them have to do with advancing American interests abroad without getting into costly wars? Some of them have to do with ending wars, or using American might to prevent other countries from attacking each other. America back then was functioning like a superpower, in a respectable way. Ask yourself, based on recent events in the Middle East, Is America still respected as a superpower? This is a timely question.

Now, have another look at the paragraph from The American Presidency: The Authoritative Reference. You may notice that some of the bold words have to do with business and other private-sector leaders running the country instead of professional politicians. The difference between business leaders and professional politicians is not just a difference in life-occupation, it is also a difference in character. This point was given clarity to me, recently, when my ears caught a segment from Neal Boortz's radio show.

Boortz explained the difference between a businessman and a politician in these ways: 

*one is sought for their job; the other seeks their job

*one invests their capital, and their ability to stay in power is based on results; the other invests the capital of taxpayers and blames other entities for failures

*one is hired by people who run the industry; the other is hired by anyone who shows up to cast a vote

*one is qualified based on credentials, experience, and job 
performance; the other is qualified by age, citizenship, and friends who are willing to promote their candidacy by making promises to an electorate, some of whom are barely literate

Dear Reader,

In thinking back to the first presidential debate between President Obama and Governor Romney, last Wednesday, assuming you watched it, which candidate do you think embodied the private-sector, results-based leader and which one embodied the professional politician? I'd be interested in reading your comment below.

Jason A.