Like nearly all of today's Americans, I didn't experience the presidency of Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) in person. No doubt he had a few drawbacks. But I regret that our most recent leaders — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — have not followed his example as a man of few words.
Everybody seems to agree that Barack Obama and Donald Trump are very different presidents. But the many notable differences between these two presidents should not deflect our attention from things that they have in common. One of the most regrettable of these similarities, in my opinion, is that unlike Mr. Coolidge both Obama and Trump have talked too much.
Coolidge's nicknames tell us a lot about his leadership style: Silent Cal, Cool Cal, The Sphinx of the Potomac, Cautious Cal. Stories about his reluctance to say much are legion. When asked what the preacher had said at a service he had attended, Coolidge supposedly replied: "sin." When they asked him what the preacher had said about it, the reply was simply: "he was against it." Another anecdote had a dinner companion who had made a bet that she could get Coolidge to say three words. When she told him about this, Coolidge replied: "you lose!"
When asked once why he attended so many dinner parties when he clearly found them uncomfortable, Coolidge replied, "Got to eat somewhere."
Despite his personal reticence, Coolidge was an effective public speaker. But he was very cautious in his pronouncements. "The words of the president have an enormous weight," he wrote after leaving the White House, "and ought not be used indiscriminately."
The contrast between Calvin Coolidge, on the one hand, and Barack Obama and Donald Trump, on the other hand, is striking, and I think it comes out in favor of Coolidge. As president, Obama apparently found it necessary to comment publicly about every development in national life, especially when it involved race, and didn't always wait to be sure that he had the facts about a situation straight before speaking up off the cuff. And even some of Obama's more scripted comments were not always appropriate. I believe two of the lowest points in his campaigning and presidency were his suggestion that Justice Clarence Thomas was an affirmative action appointee in the worst possible sense, and his attack on the Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision while the justices were sitting in the audience for a State of the Union address.
Donald Trump has outdone Barack Obama in his ill-considered public comments and in tweet storms on every subject, including the courts. Calling other national leaders "low IQ" and "crooked" does not sound presidential. While the public (and therefore the press) finds this entertaining, it certainly does not increase his stature and effectiveness as national leader. I have forgotten so much of my Spanish that I can only remember one proverb, perhaps none too accurately, but it is one that the president's advisers should bring to his attention: "La boca cerrada no tiene mosca." The closed mouth has no flies.
French President Charles de Gaulle was an extremely effective leader, twice saving his country from crises: when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, and after the post-war Fourth Republic fell to pieces. He felt that to be an effective leader he needed to maintain a little distance from the public and to restrain himself from speaking very often, so that when he did speak it would be a real occasion. Would that Obama and Trump would model themselves more after de Gaulle and Coolidge!
President Teddy Roosevelt famously said that the White House was a bully pulpit. Of course he was not using the term "bully" in its modern, negative sense as a noun, but as a synonym for "excellent" or "first rate." Presidents can always get national attention when they say something, and it is understandably hard for them to resist the temptation. And up to a certain point, they even have a duty to speak, since one presidential function is teaching Americans to understand where their bread is buttered and focusing national attention on important things that need to be done.
It is possible that President Coolidge went too far in his verbal passivity. When it was reported that the former president had died, Dorothy Parker, a wit at the time, asked "How could they tell?" There is no danger that this could happen to Barack Obama or Donald Trump.
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1966, and has been a National Merit Scholar, an NDEA Fellow, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a Fellow in Law and Political Science at the Harvard Law School. His college textbook, "Thinking About Politics: American Government in Associational Perspective," was published in 1981 and his most recent book is "Beyond Capitalism: A Classless Society With (Mostly) Free Markets." His columns have appeared in newspapers in Michigan, Oregon, and a number of other states. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.