It was with considerable sadness that I received the news of James D. Barber's passing back in 2004. Barber is a well-known political scientist whose most important work deals with presidents' "character." Essentially, he psychoanalyzes the presidents from afar. It has its flaws (quite obviously) but it is still canon. Not only do I rely on Barber as an important component of teaching the young'ns about the presidency, but I desperately wanted him to live long enough to have to deal with George W. Bush.
Barber divides presidents into four personality categories based on two dichotomous components: Are they active or passive, positive or negative? Active-positive presidents (FDR, Clinton, JFK) show high levels of confidence and move past failures easily. Passive-positives (Reagan, Taft) are genial but get wounded very easily; they detest conflict and need to be everyone's friend. Passive-Negatives (Eisenhower, Washington) are reluctant, hands-off presidents who do the job only out of a sense of duty. Lastly, Active-Negatives (LBJ, Nixon) are entirely resistant to change, see "enemies" everywhere, and refuse to get over (or abandon) failed policies.
Let's just say you don't need to take my entire course to figure out where George W. Bush belongs in Barber's typology.
It has been interesting to teach the course for a couple of years.
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Originally, the College Republicans in the audience would argue that Bush is Active-Positive. After all, he does propose a lot of very big ideas (most of them terrible, of course) and seems relentlessly positive. As time goes on, the students who argue that seem to be disappearing. The key, defining characteristic of the Active-Negative category is the refusal to abandon failed ideas coupled with paranoia and secrecy. The consensus seems to be that Bush belongs there. Barber would agree. Believe it or not, I am starting to think everyone is wrong.
Reading the most recent column by former Reagan/Bush 41 apparatchik Peggy Noonan really got me thinking…can Barber's analysis even handle someone like W? Noonan says:
As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring.
online pharmacy doxycycline no prescriptionPresidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.
…Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.
Presidents never fit squarely and cleanly into one of Barber's little boxes, and we can't expect that W will. But Barber's analysis presumes a lot of things about its subjects. It presumes that, for the most part, our presidents are sane. They may be awful people (Nixon, LBJ, etc) who get boners from belittling people and neurotically see "enemies" everywhere. They may be jerks. They may be inept. What they are not, Barber assumes, is out of their goddamn minds.
When I see the way this president acts – and the complete absence of doubt in public or even in private – I'm convinced that there's something wrong with the guy. Here is a president who experiences failure after failure, a man whose decisions have caused untold death and suffering (not to mention leaving our national finances in an absolute shambles). He's essentially hated by everyone who is not a hardcore, unmovable Republican loyalist. And yet he's on top of the world. He's happy. He's convinced that he's well-liked. He brags about how well he sleeps. He constantly goes on vacation. Optimism and the ability to brush off failure is one thing – a complete disconnect from reality is another.
I look at the reality in which Bush finds himself and I cannot help but think this is not how a normal person would act. That's a weak line of argument, as none of us can judge (especially from afar) how someone "should" react. But I can't help it. Honest to god, how can anyone face the failures that face the president – and the knowledge that it's entirely his fault – with that fucking smirk on his face?
Whoever continues Barber's work will probably take the path of least resistance and lump him in with Nixon and the Active-Negatives. Is that possible, when Bush acts like this is all a great big joke to him? That's what makes him truly unique. Nixon didn't spend his press conferences laughing and plying the press corps with Dumbass Fratboy Humor. I don't recall seeing a smile on LBJ's face anytime after 1965. But George W. Bush feels just fine despite that pesky war and those dirty liberals who obstruct his plans to privatize everything between here and the moon.
I half expect that if he addressed the Iraqi parliament he'd crack a few jokes and, perturbed by the lack of response, ask "Why all the long faces?"
J. Dryden says:
Great post. I'd never heard of Barber, but I'm definitely going to read him. (I assume Wilson would fall into the Active-Negative camp, big-time.) Bush reminds one of the more remote monarchs of history–Chinese Emperors who never saw anything outside the Forbidden city–Dauphins who'd always had 17 levels of servants between them and the people who actually ran the country. I think that the bizarre ability you correctly note in him to grin with genuine bonhomie at a world that loathes him is due to the fact that he's surrounded, even more than Reagan was, by human shields, and always has been.
He simply doesn't understand the consequences of actions because he's never had to face any, so what does he have to worry about–why *should* he be upset? None of this affects him in any way. He is, I'd say, a Passive-Positive figure (he's incredibly lazy but only seems comfortable when things are affable, if in a bullying manner) in an adminstration that isn't isn't really his, and is run by an Active-Negative figure (Cheney), who does all the heavy lifting and whose intractability, paranoia and general level of reeking evil make one long for the comparatively effortless charm of Nixon. As long as Cheney tells Bush's handlers to keep him out of the loop, and buck up the man's spirits by telling him how good things are really going, I don't see any reason why Bush's mood should dampen at all…
peggy says:
Good grief, I'm frightened. (As usual.)