Why W should learn from WW

Overview

As an Advisor Described Wilson, "Once a Decision Is Made It Is Final." But Strength of Character Is No Substitute For Organizational Competence.

George W. Bush has been described as "obsessed by the idea of being a 'transformational' president; not just a status-quo operator like Bill Clinton." Members of his administration compare him to Ronald Reagan or Harry Truman. But the 20th-century president he most resembles, for better and worse, is Woodrow Wilson.

There are uncanny similarities between Wilson and Bush. Both were highly religious and moralistic figures who were elected initially with less than a majority of the popular vote, and focused on domestic issues without any vision of foreign policy. Both were initially successful with their transformational domestic agendas in Congress. Both tended to portray the world in black and white rather than shades of gray. Both projected self-confidence, responded to a crisis with a bold vision and stuck to it.

Both relied on a close political adviser and failed to adequately manage a broad range of information inputs in their administration. As Secretary of State Robert Lansing commented in 1917, "Even established facts were ignored if they did not fit in with this intuitive sense, this semi-divine power to select the right." As a close adviser described Wilson, "Whenever a question is presented he keeps an absolutely open mind and welcomes all suggestion or advice which will lead to a correct decision. Once a decision is made it is final and there is an end to all advice and suggestion. There is no moving him after that." While persistence can be an admirable trait in a leader, it can also be dangerous when it slows course corrections.

Although sometimes described as the first M.B.A.-style president, George W. Bush displays some of the same organizational deficiencies as Wilson. As described by David Gergen, "Bush is a top-down, no-nonsense, decisive, macho leader who sets his eye on the far horizon and doesn't 'go wobbly' getting there." But strength of character is not an adequate substitute for organizational competence (such as Bush's father possessed). Information flows in the run-up to the Iraq war were clearly limited. Former secretary of State Colin Powell reported of Bush that "he knows kind of what he wants to do, and what he wants to hear is how to get it done."

Though Wilson started as an idealist and Bush as a realist, both wound up stressing the promotion of democracy and freedom in the rest of the world as their transformative vision. And both defined visions that had a large gap between expressed ideals and national capacities. Many of Bush's speeches sound as if they could have been uttered by Wilson, though Wilson was the better rhetorician. Fortunately for Bush, there are also important differences between the two men. Bush appears to have an emotional intelligence and self-mastery that failed Wilson at crucial moments. He is also more personable where Wilson was often stiff and aloof.

Both Wilson and Bush tried to educate the public to accept their visions. But as political scientist Hugh Heclo argues, "Successful teaching requires ongoing learning on the teacher's part." Bush's impatience hinders learning. In the words of a journalist who spent many hours with him, "He has a transformational temperament. He likes to shake things up. That was the key to going into Iraq." That impatient temperament also contributed to the organizational process Bush put in place that discouraged learning. In his second term, Bush has made some efforts to change the debate on Iraq by publicly acknowledging new facts. But as one of the designers of this strategy said, "It only worked because we married it up with admitting some mistakes, and that was quite a fight, because the president doesn't talk that way."

Wilson succeeded initially in educating a majority of the American people about his League of Nations, but he failed because he refused to make compromises with the Senate. Whether Bush will be able to persuade the American people of his proposed transformation of American strategy remains to be seen. His legacy now depends upon the still-uncertain outcome of the preventive war in Iraq, which was his particular addition to the crisis created by Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11.

The prospects for successful transformational leadership in foreign policy are greatest in the context of a crisis. But even then, it takes a combination of soft power skills to attract people at home and abroad with a feasible vision, and hard organizational and political skills to implement the vision. Franklin D. Roosevelt had the combination. Woodrow Wilson did not. In his first term, George W. Bush articulated transformational objectives but did not develop a successful strategy to accomplish them. Today his case remains open, but he is running out of time.