The Presidency

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said in one of his Fireside Chats, “The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”

President John Kennedy said, “For only the President represents the national interest. Upon him alone converge all the needs and aspirations of all parts of the country and all nations of the world.”

President Lyndon Johnson once referred to the White House as “that house of decisions.”

Moral leadership. The interest of the nation and the world. Critical decision making. Those are some of the most important responsibilities of the president of the United States.

The presidency is not about brand; it’s not about endless rallies of off the cuff speeches filled with jokes and taunts. It was never intended to be a place of chaos, disorganized strategies, or useless press conferences where a spokesperson and not the president speaks in platitudes, false information, and lectures the media on how to behave.

I keep waiting for someone of leadership to speak to the nation as Martin Luther King, Jr. did when he delivered his magnificent Civil Rights speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Or as Maya Angelou did at President Clinton’s inauguration when with words luminous and insightful, she said, “You, created only a little lower than the angels / have crouched too long in the bruising darkness / have lain too long face down in ignorance.” Or John Kennedy saying it’s not, what can our country do for us, but what can we do for our country?

These were people of high intellect, and yet they knew how to speak to all the country. They weren’t any of them perfect, but they did have principles they lived by. They were devout in their genuine concern for all people. They understood how government works, and how it can be a force for good, even greatness, or how it can be misused into something cruel and manipulating. They had a deep appreciation for words, books, and learning. And when they spoke or wrote, there was inspiration, there was wisdom for the nation.

Moral leadership is not attending church, or quoting Bible verses, or scolding people for their sins. Moral leadership is about modeling a type of humanity that demonstrates compassion, virtue, character, self-discipline, and integrity. It is leadership that sees the desperate needs of people and fashions legislation to meet those needs. It is unprejudiced and expects government to operate on behalf of all its citizens. It empathizes with the poor and the left out, the disabled and the ignored, the sick and the elderly. It shows compassion. It offers real help. It is leadership that is humble as well as confident. And it sees beyond the borders of America and respects the lives of people across the world. And when necessary it is leadership that lends the vast resources of our nation to help other nations in trouble.

And the national interest? It has to be a primary duty of the president. He or she cannot be the president of cliques, elites, a particular race, a specific religion, or only of people of power and influence. The president serves the interests of the nation, not himself/herself; not a political party; not a religious group; not anyone except all the people of the nation. Our national interests are human interests. A president who ignores that does not well serve our country.

That is not liberal politics. That is not socialism. That is American democracy.

And finally, those decisions. The presidency is not a place for anyone who has no vision for the nation, no rational plan to keep order, no interest in the health and well being of all Americans. The president is required, as our national leader, to calm the American people in times of crisis and keep us safe from one another or foreign enemies, guide us in restoring our best values when they are lost, and speak words and display in actions ways that solidify unity and help us work together.

Singer songwriter, Paul McCartney, once said, “I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity, to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.”

We are the choir. And as Americans we have made some beautiful music together. But it takes a gifted conductor/president to enable us to work in harmony and deliver to our nation and the world, a masterpiece of national unity, which would make all of us feel optimistic about the human race.

© 2019 Timothy Moody