General Quarters

At an event this weekend I was asked (by a liberal … what else in Massachusetts) who my favorite President was. I said that, in my lifetime and although I didn’t vote for him, Ronald Reagan was the best, but probably Lincoln overall. Trying to bait me, I think, this amiable lefty then ticked off a number of, to me, awful presidents, Clinton, LBJ, Carter, etc. Then he mentioned General Eisenhower. I said he was OK, but not great.

This got me to thinking about Generals who later went on to be President … George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Clearly Washington was the standout General/President on this list … for he led our nation through its pre-political nascence with a steady, moral hand and established gentlemanly codes of conduct for the President and the Office of the President that have survived up until recently. All the others, although serving admirably militarily, in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and World War II did not, in my opinion, add much luster to the White House.

The question that then begs itself is why? Perhaps, it is because governance is so different from leadership in battle. As a General, your subordinates are a little more focused and loyal when they know (knew) that they could be shot at dawn for screwing up. More recently, Presidents have seen many of their staff write “tell-all” books in order to get their 15 minutes of Warhol fame. George Bush, in particular, was plagued by a retinue of incompetent direct reports. His loyalty to them usually far exceeded theirs to him. Barack Obama, unfortunately, seems to be suffering somewhat from this same lack of competent underlings, but with the loyalty ratio inverted. Generals have staff members who have survived years of testing in their respective jobs. Presidents, on the other hand, often surround themselves with fresh-faced political hangers-on who often mistake media fawning for good decision making.

Generals take an existing organization and move it forward. Presidents build a new organization every four or eight years and the good ones must be able to inspire these organizations to excel. In other words, Generals lead with their stars while Presidents lead with their ideas. Using this as criteria, General Colin Powell probably would not have excelled had he been elected President. And the U.S. electorate should probably pause before it next tries to promote a military hero to its Presidency.