It is this reporter’s opinion that journalist Susan Jacoby, author of the “The Age of American Reason,” published by Pantheon and released earlier this month, hits the nail on the head when she calls for a test for the role of president.
Susan says the commander in chief who wants to be a leader must first be a teacher. Susan asks, “Is there a test for the role of president?”
She cites our greatest presidents, in the judgment of historians and popular memory, including Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, who would never have succeeded as commanders in chief had they not at first succeeded as “teachers in chief.”
Susan recounts the case of Franklin Roosevelt and his understanding of the Nazi scourge of Adolph Hitler. With most of Roosevelt’s countrymen opposed to entering the war, Roosevelt delivered what is arguably his most powerful education message.
On Dec. 29, 1940, Roosevelt delivered what would become known as his “arsenal of democracy” speech. The lend and lease of military aid to Britain soon followed.
FDR did not say, “I’m the decider.” Instead he offered information about the world and persuaded us to chart a different course.
Congress renewed the Selective Service Act by only a one-vote margin in the summer of 1941. It is sobering to reflect how unprepared we would have been on Dec. 7, 1941, if Roosevelt had said and done nothing.
In domestic as well as foreign policy, Susan Jacobs says it is time for presidents to begin acting as teachers in chief before, not after, our problems turn into a crisis.
She tells us that to qualify for the post of teacher in chief a candidate must demonstrate the ability and the desire to transcend the culture of destruction and teach with messages of warning and alert so as to shake up an intellectually lazy public.
She again reminds us that there is a difference between propaganda and education.
George W. Bush, who belongs to the "decide first, explain later" school of president decision-making, sold the Iraq war to the public on grounds of nonexistent Iraqi WMD and on the expectation of a quick victory.
This can work when a policy is as popular as Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq was in 2003. But deciding without educating fails to work when a policy is unpopular in the first place.
Given the facts, the people will make the right decision. In domestic as well as foreign policy, the time for presidents to start acting as teachers in chief is before, not after the problem turns into a crisis.
It is this reporter’s opinion that every potential candidate should read carefully Susan Jacoby’s test for a commander in chief and be a teacher first.
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