Newspaper OpEd (2007)

Robert P. Watson

Putting Hillary and Rudy on the Presidential Couch

Nearly four decades ago, James David Barber, a professor at Duke, made a prediction that would make him famous. Based on his study of the president’s paranoia and compulsion, Barber predicted our commander-in-chief was destined to crash and burn. Who was the president? Richard Nixon. As predicted, Nixon later resigned the office on account of scandals brought about by defects in his personality.

Barber’s premise was that, in the White House, personality matters. The president’s style, worldview, and temperament could either be problematic (Nixon) for the leader of the free world, or beneficial (FDR). The late Professor developed a psycho-analytical model that would help to predict the performance of presidential hopefuls once in office. While it is difficult to accurately predict performance based on circumstantial evidence, scholars accept his central argument about the importance of the president’s personality, using it as a key to assessing a president’s fitness for office.

So, what would Professor Barber have to say about the current front-runners for the White House – Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani? I am afraid that neither would pass muster and that serious flags would be raised. Acknowledging the challenge of accurately assessing their psychological attributes, I would nonetheless maintain that both candidates would appear to share some dangerous traits with Nixon and other self-destructive presidents.

Nixon was obsessive, conspiratorial, and brooding, and thus had a tendency to take things personally while trying to control everything and everyone around him. Ultimately Nixon, like Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush, and Woodrow Wilson, was a megalomaniac who resorted to bullying, exhibited righteous indignation toward his opponents, and had an almost knee-jerk hostility toward the press, intellectuals, and serious policy analysis.

These four presidents became so utterly rigid in their mindsets and so zealously overconfident in their decisions that, at critical moments, they lacked any sense of history, any appreciation for the nuanced complexities of the issues, or any respect for their critics. At best they ended up ignoring opinions that differed from their own and, at worst, rejected them completely. Accordingly, all four presidents infamously became isolated and out of touch from the reality of events around them while marching the country into disastrous policies.

Tragically, all four presidents had great potential. Nixon remains one of the most sage foreign policy thinkers, LBJ one of our most gifted politicians and strategists, and Wilson one of the brightest ever to serve. Bush, despite his numerous shortcomings, was handed a national tragedy that offered an unprecedented opportunity to rally the country and international community to our side. Yet, each of these presidents was undone by profound flaws in their character.

Even a cursory examination of Senator Clinton and Mayor Giuliani show them to exhibit many of the same quirks. Both are thin-skinned, self-centered, obsessed with control, and distrusting of the press, their opponents, and even public opinion. In the face of criticism or opposition, Giuliani, who does not like to answer questions, often bristles and goes on the offensive by heaping blame on others. Clinton still refuses to acknowledge her own shortcomings, and instead concocts conspiracy theories in an effort to shift responsibility for her actions.

For all their gifts and accomplishments, Clinton and Giuliani demand complete loyalty from the "yes" men/women they have chosen to surround themselves with, cast those who offer constructive criticism as enemies, and have shown themselves to be unforgiving, notoriously difficult to work for, and vindictive when crossed. Contrast these traits with the genuine empathy and humility of Lincoln or Truman. Honest Abe valued the advice given to him by, in the words of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, his "team of rivals" just as Truman demanded debate not deference from both aides and opponents.

In the White House, it helps to be inclusive, thick-skinned, adaptable, and magnanimous. Yet, it is hard to imagine either Clinton or Giuliani as Truman, speaking the truth and accepting "the buck stops here" responsibility for their mistakes. Speaking to the great challenge at the close of the Civil War, Lincoln affirmed: "With malice toward none; with charity for all… Let us strive… to bind up the nation’s wounds for a just and lasting peace."

The next president will need to both rekindle our soiled relations with much of the world and heal the rift at home. But I seriously doubt Giuliani has the disposition to accomplish this abroad or that Clinton is the person to heal the home front. Indeed, if I am correct in my assessment and if history is any guide, the personalities of our leading candidates for the presidency could prove to be anything but helpful.