Schlesinger: State of the 'Vision Thing'

[reprehensor]

http://tinyurl.com/24gao

The president of the United States, wrote Henry Adams, the most brilliant of American historians, "resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek."

The Constitution awards presidents the helm, but creative presidents must possess and communicate the direction in which they propose to take the country. The port they seek is what the first President Bush dismissively called "the vision thing."

Let us interview another president on this point. Franklin D. Roosevelt was by common consent one of the great presidents of the United States. The presidency, FDR said, "is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is predominantly a place of moral leadership. All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified." In other words, they were possessed by their visions.

So, FDR continued, Washington personified the idea of federal union. Jefferson typified the theory of democracy, which Jackson reaffirmed. Lincoln, by condemning slavery and secession, put two great principles of government forever beyond question. Cleveland embodied rugged honesty in a corrupt age. Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson were both moral leaders using the presidency as a pulpit. "Without leadership alert and sensitive to change," FDR wrote, "we are bogged up or lose our way,"
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More at link.
Schlesinger rarely writes so scathingly of a President sitting in office. He is a historian, and although I consider him a 'court historian', this quote from the article allows us to see through the eyes of a man who has specialized in American history, notably, American Presidential history.

"Some visions are intelligent and benign. Other visions are stupid and malevolent."

Swee-eeeeeeet!