Email us for help
Loading...
Premium support
Log Out
Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy have changed. We think you'll like them better this way.
Let us assume that Jimmy Carter is an intelligent, decent, hardworking man. Assume, moreover, that he has appointed to his cabinet and sub-cabinet many men and women who are experienced and dedicated. How, then, can a president—certainly no less mentally alert than most past presidents—with many advisers of high caliber, produce such an undistinguished presidency?
It’s a puzzlement. And it cannot be accounted for by most of the explanations currently in vogue, such as: Carter’s an outsider who really doesn’t understand the levers of national governance; or Carter surrounds himself with a “Georgia Mafia” whose weaknesses are the same as his own; or Carter is a bad manager who hasn’t been able to sort out decisions that a president must make from those that should be settled at lower levels; or Congress is so uncontrollable that it will not allow any president to exercise the reins of leadership; or the bureaucracy has grown beyond the span of presidential control; or many of the nation’s problem’s are highly intractable; or even all these reasons taken together—although there is truth in all.