At his press conference Friday, the President-Elect said he was rereading Lincoln for "inspiration," but he may also want to take another look at David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest."
Like JFK, Barack Obama values brains, but Halberstam's book might inspire him to be wary of the hubris that can blindside academic brilliance without accompanying insight into the realities of human behavior, as it did with Kennedy's overachievers who went on to bring down LBJ with their tunnel vision of the Vietnam war.
Obama has shown the self-awareness and empathy--some call it "emotional intelligence"--needed for leadership but, in overturning all the clichés about "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," the real test will come in creating and managing a government with all those qualities.
"The second most remarkable thing about his election," Nicholas Kristof writes, "is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual...
"Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse—a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance—doesn’t get very far either."
But, Kristof adds, "It doesn’t help that intellectuals are often as full of themselves as of ideas."
The 1972 look back at Vietnam took its scathing "Best and Brightest" title from Kennedy's so-called "whiz kids," thinkers from industry and academia such as Robert McNamara and the Bundy brothers, whom Halberstam characterized as arrogantly insisting on "brilliant policies that defied common sense" in the Vietnam quagmire.
(For his pains, a new report shows Halberstam was closely tracked by the FBI for two decades, another sign that too much thinking of any kind is suspect in American politics.)
Obama's Illinois predecessor, Adlai Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice half a century ago being labeled an unworldly "egghead," observed, “The hardest thing about any campaign is how to win without proving you’re unworthy of winning.”
The President-Elect has cleared that hurdle and now faces the higher leap into governing with a winning balance of heart and mind.
Showing posts with label Adlai Stevenson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adlai Stevenson. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
End Game
As the Clintons face the inevitable in the Rules and Bylaws Committee today and the last primaries next Tuesday, they may want to look back half a century at the Democrat who set the standard for losing gracefully.
"I'm too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh," Adlai Stevenson said after his defeat in the 1952 presidential election by Dwight Eisenhower. He was quoting Lincoln, but the grownup grace was all his own.
Stevenson lost again four years later but in 1960 some of the party elders still backed him for the nomination, notably Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who deemed JFK "too inexperienced."
But Kennedy won them over, and the rest is history. At the '60 Convention, Stevenson closed ranks by introducing the nominee for his acceptance speech, and Kennedy responded in kind:
"I want to express my thanks to Governor Stevenson for his generous and heart-warming introduction. It was my great honor to place his name in nomination at the 1956 Democratic Convention, and I am delighted to have his support and his counsel and his advice in the coming months ahead."
Note to Hillary, Bill, Barack et al: The Democrats won the White House that year, and JFK appointed Stevenson US Ambassador to the UN, where he played a critical role during the Cuban Missile Crisis two years later.
"I'm too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh," Adlai Stevenson said after his defeat in the 1952 presidential election by Dwight Eisenhower. He was quoting Lincoln, but the grownup grace was all his own.
Stevenson lost again four years later but in 1960 some of the party elders still backed him for the nomination, notably Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who deemed JFK "too inexperienced."
But Kennedy won them over, and the rest is history. At the '60 Convention, Stevenson closed ranks by introducing the nominee for his acceptance speech, and Kennedy responded in kind:
"I want to express my thanks to Governor Stevenson for his generous and heart-warming introduction. It was my great honor to place his name in nomination at the 1956 Democratic Convention, and I am delighted to have his support and his counsel and his advice in the coming months ahead."
Note to Hillary, Bill, Barack et al: The Democrats won the White House that year, and JFK appointed Stevenson US Ambassador to the UN, where he played a critical role during the Cuban Missile Crisis two years later.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Obama as the New Nixon
Paul Krugman has been on Barack Obama's case for weeks, criticizing him over Social Security and health care, but in today's New York Times, he goes over the line into comparing supporters of the "new Kennedy" to, of all people, the old Nixon.
Ironically, Krugman quotes Adlai Stevenson decrying the effect of Eisenhower's VP in making America “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”
If anything, for some observers, Obama has evoked Stevenson more than JFK in his thoughtful approach and willingness to credit voters with enough intelligence to go beyond sound-bite slogans. His "Yes, We Can" style has been the polar opposite of Nixon's approach to politics.
But Krugman says "most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration--remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again."
A combination of Nixon and George W. Bush? To quote the Republican phrasemaker of 2008, Mike Huckabee, "If you're getting a lot of flak, you must be over the target."
Ironically, Krugman quotes Adlai Stevenson decrying the effect of Eisenhower's VP in making America “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”
If anything, for some observers, Obama has evoked Stevenson more than JFK in his thoughtful approach and willingness to credit voters with enough intelligence to go beyond sound-bite slogans. His "Yes, We Can" style has been the polar opposite of Nixon's approach to politics.
But Krugman says "most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration--remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again."
A combination of Nixon and George W. Bush? To quote the Republican phrasemaker of 2008, Mike Huckabee, "If you're getting a lot of flak, you must be over the target."
Sunday, February 03, 2008
The Kennedying of Obama: Cautionary Note
In the desperation to be rid of Bush, this has become a year of imagery shorthand. While any Republican with a pulse claims to be another Reagan, Barack Obama is seen as a new JFK.
There are parallels. As Nixon did in 1960, Hillary Clinton is invoking her experience during the eight-year tenure of a popular president. But in both cases, the actual occupant of the Oval Office undermined the chances of his would-be successor.
Eisenhower did nothing as blatant as Bill Clinton's campaign antics but, in trying to help his Vice-President in 1960, he asserted that Nixon played a major role during his terms in office. Asked at a press conference about any piece of advice he had heeded, Eisenhower answered, "If you give me a week, I might think of one."
In that campaign, as Frank Rich reminds us today, neither could Kennedy point to any significant achievement in his brief Senate career, but what he offered was change in a time when Americans were ready but not as desperate as they are now for new, younger leadership.
If anything, in his style and emphasis on rational exploration of every issue, Obama is less like Kennedy than Adlai Stevenson, another figure from Illinois, who lost twice to Eisenhower.
Stevenson, who once defined a politician as "someone who approaches every question with an open mouth," was reluctant, as Obama is now, to offer bumper-sticker solutions on every issue. But Stevenson was up against an American legend, and Obama is offering a poetic vision much like Kennedy's as an alternative to the Clintons' mixed legacy.
As he prepares to collide with them on Super Tuesday, Obama might want to recall something else Stevenson said: “The hardest thing about any campaign is how to win without proving you’re unworthy of winning.”
There are parallels. As Nixon did in 1960, Hillary Clinton is invoking her experience during the eight-year tenure of a popular president. But in both cases, the actual occupant of the Oval Office undermined the chances of his would-be successor.
Eisenhower did nothing as blatant as Bill Clinton's campaign antics but, in trying to help his Vice-President in 1960, he asserted that Nixon played a major role during his terms in office. Asked at a press conference about any piece of advice he had heeded, Eisenhower answered, "If you give me a week, I might think of one."
In that campaign, as Frank Rich reminds us today, neither could Kennedy point to any significant achievement in his brief Senate career, but what he offered was change in a time when Americans were ready but not as desperate as they are now for new, younger leadership.
If anything, in his style and emphasis on rational exploration of every issue, Obama is less like Kennedy than Adlai Stevenson, another figure from Illinois, who lost twice to Eisenhower.
Stevenson, who once defined a politician as "someone who approaches every question with an open mouth," was reluctant, as Obama is now, to offer bumper-sticker solutions on every issue. But Stevenson was up against an American legend, and Obama is offering a poetic vision much like Kennedy's as an alternative to the Clintons' mixed legacy.
As he prepares to collide with them on Super Tuesday, Obama might want to recall something else Stevenson said: “The hardest thing about any campaign is how to win without proving you’re unworthy of winning.”
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