Yquotes.com

 

In 2008, many of Barack Obama’s supporters thought they might be electing another John F. Kennedy. But his recent maneuvers increasingly suggest that they selected another Dwight Eisenhower.
That’s not a comment on President Obama’s effectiveness or ideology, but rather on his conception of presidential leadership. Whether he is confronting the turmoil reshaping the Middle East or the escalating budget wars in Washington, Obama most often uses a common set of strategies to pursue his goals. Those strategies have less in common with Kennedy’s inspirational, public-oriented leadership than with the muted, indirect, and targeted Eisenhower model that political scientist Fred Greenstein memorably described as a “hidden hand” presidency.
This approach has allowed Obama to achieve many of his domestic and international aims — from passing the health reform legislation that marked its stormy first anniversary this week to encouraging Egypt’s peaceful transfer of power. But, like it did for Eisenhower, this style has exposed Obama to charges of passivity, indecisiveness, and leading from behind. The pattern has left even some of his supporters uncertain whether he is shrewd — or timid.
On most issues, Obama has consciously chosen not to make himself the fulcrum. He has identified broad goals but has generally allowed others to take the public lead, waited until the debate has substantially coalesced, and only then announced a clear, visible stand meant to solidify consensus. He appears to believe he can most often exert maximum leverage toward the end of any process — an implicit rejection of the belief that a president’s greatest asset is his ability to define the choices for the country (and the world).
To the extent that Obama shapes processes along the way, he tends to do so offstage rather than in public. Throughout, he has shown an unswerving resistance to absolutist public pronouncements and grand theories.
--
Ronald Brownstein, in "Like Ike" in NationaJournal (25 March 2011)

 

Barack Obama

» Barack Obama - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

In The Hidden-Hand Presidency : Eisenhower as Leader, Greenstein attributed part of the public's discontent with presidential performance to the conflict built into the Constitution between the president's apolitical and unifying role as chief of state and his partisan and divisive role as head of government. … Eisenhower was able to bridge the built-in contradictions of the office and provide an effective leadership style. In his analysis of Eisenhower, Greenstein focused on three classes of variables: the personal properties of the man, his leadership strategies, and his organizational style. Eisenhower's political psychology exhibited antithetical qualities in public and private, a duality well suited for adapting to contradictory public expectations. His leadership strategies involved making his job as chief of state readily visible while covertly exercising much of his public leadership. In parallel fashion, his organizational style focused public attention on the formal machinery but left unpublicized his use of informal organization.

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

The statements of our Kenyan brother of American nationality, Obama, on Jerusalem … show that he either ignores international politics and did not study the Middle East conflict or that it [Barack Obama's expression of solidarity with Israel] is a campaign lie. We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites. This will be a tragedy. We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him.

 

Muammar Gaddafi

 

I was most forcefully struck by this sentence: “As president, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests.”
That is perhaps the most starkly expressed realist sentiment that I can remember hearing from a president since … well, I’m honestly not sure when. And Obama then followed it up by citing Eisenhower, who was really the last president to worry publicly about the balance between our commitments abroad and our ability to pay for them.

 

Barack Obama

 

[Obama was] really everything the American public would expect from their national leadership. The President was at all times presidential. I would contend he was the smartest guy in the room. He had leadership skills we'd expect from a guy who had 35 years in the military.

 

Barack Obama

 

Well, the reason why is because I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses and we've never voted. That's not to say that I don't think Barack Obama - President Obama - is a very smart individual and he seems like he means well. Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.

 

Prince (musician)