A president needs empathy and emotional intelligence, so that he can prevail in political dealings with his own party and the opposition in Washington, and in face-to-face negotiations with foreign leaders, who otherwise will go away saying that this president is “weak” and that the country’s leadership role is suspect. He needs to be confident but not arrogant; open-minded but not a weather vane; resolute but still adaptable; historically minded but highly alert to the present; visionary but practical; personally disciplined but not a prig or martinet. He should be physically fit, disease-resistant, and capable of being fully alert at a moment’s notice when the phone rings at 3 a.m.—yet also able to sleep each night, despite unremitting tension and without chemical aids.

Ideally he would be self-aware enough that, in the center of a system that treats him as emperor-god, he could still recognize his own defects and try to offset them.

From James Fallow’s latest cover story on Obama in The Atlantic.

This seems an unlikely conclusion to make given the national mood since the recession started. The amount of muckraking journalism to expose corruption and malfeasance in the public sphere, and especially in private industry and finance, seems to have risen extraordinarily. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are not treated unsympathetically as mindless violence, a la the “ghetto violence” and war protests Gans mentions from the 60′s, but as serious movements with admirable policy platforms.

In theory, journalistic outlets are progressive because they identify the “moral disorder” of elites (per Gans’s terminology). But this is, I think, very much a facade. Gans already identifies the ways in which the news does not reflect what I would call “true” progressivism: it mainly allies itself with the values of the upper-middle class, professional elites that make up those news outlets’ readership. It doesn’t pay attention to the plight of the poor. It does not truly question authority.

That might be a naive standard to set. But journalists have to question authority to conduct true journalism. Journalists failed in their charge after 9/11 and in the lead-up to the Iraq War precisely because they failed to question authority and allied themselves with the predominate moral and political opinions of those in power, politically, economically, and socially. The examples of this malfeasance of the journalistic class abounds and are too many to continue.

In asking, “What is news?” I was reminded of a question recently posed in the form of a blog post by Arthur Brisbane, the New York Times Ombudsman: “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” Should newspapers point out that X politician made Y and Z false statements? The obvious answer is yes (Jim Fallows at The Atlantic generally summed up my views). Fallows’ critique of the media is common today, and has been common for a long time: that many journalists engage in superficial “horse race reporting” (where facts are presented without context and meaning) and “false equivalence” (where two opposing truth claims are treated as equally plausible). This critique is even mentioned in one of the readings, “If you call to mind the topics which form the principal indictment by reformers against the press, you find they are subjects in which the newspaper occupies the position of the umpire in the unscored baseball game.” (Lippmann, 50)

Some of our readings make the opposite case. According to Halberstam, news is not about providing context or explanation: “News reports, on the other hand, need not be explanatory and those explanations which do appear in news account are often adscititious intrusions.” (Halberstam, 13) Halberstam’s definition of the news would seem to rule out a lot of important news. Financial reporting on the recession, for example, would be useless without context and explanation of the causes and actors involved in the crash. Similarly, Halberstam’s emphasis on events as news would rule out most news stories concerning global warming, or other long-term patterns that impact us in dramatic ways.

I know that personally, I would like to believe that journalists exist as the fourth estate, uncovering malfeasance and inserting themselves into the political process in a way that makes everyone else more informed and better citizens. This sort of reporting would require context and explanation of events and long-term patterns. Lippmann argues strenuously against this idealistic vision: “If the newspapers, then, are to be charged with the duty of translating the whole public life of mankind, so that every adult can arrive at an opinion on every moot topic, they fail, they are bound to fail, in any future one can conceive they will continue to fail.” (Lippmann, 117-118) That might be a straw-man argument. I don’t think that the media, by fulfilling its public purpose, will hand down the truth from on high to the masses. Every person makes autonomous judgments. Rather, news media should seek to make people better-informed citizens, regardless of the political conclusions those people make. After all, Morson’s example of the degraded conditions at the Ridge Home nursing center could lead someone to conclude the government should improve the center, or that the government should abolish the center.

Shirky puts this starkly as a male-female divide, but I would hope any self-reflective person struggles with the delicate balance between being genuine and authentic vs. confident and successful. Ultimately though this is a false choice. We don’t have to sacrifice either, and quite often these qualities reinforce the others. If you find yourself becoming inauthentic as you rise professionally, “you’re doing it wrong.” But when you are authentically confident, people recognize both your authenticity and your confidence, and reward you for both (this might be an exaggeration solely supported by my personal experience). Maybe it’s hard to achieve that state. But that’s the point. It should be hard. There’s no point to it otherwise.

The two top comments were really superb. First this:

I recognize the unfairness when the societal differentiation is considered. But I have also noted the worth of taking for your own the strength of “not caring about” …so much. A good example is in your average male bonding: it’s not that men don’t have their limits, and certainly can trigger the threshold whereby an outright fighting response is provoked with another man, but that bonding almost universally includes a higher threshold for taking cracks, jabs, humorous insults, swipes, etc, and, when you learn how to give them well and in a good-spirited way (I cannot emphasize the second modifier enough), the joy shared by all. The essence of success in this comes from that differentiation learned over time from men’s interactions to develop in-sensitivity, “to not care so much”. Individuals can wisely adapt for themselves virtues learned from the stereotypical schools of women’s sensitivity and men’s insensitivity, suited to taste. In the above case, it’s about our feelings, but the callous of not-caring-so-much also becomes a tool of confidence for other things.

All this being said, hopefully the true difference between an asshole and an admirable person is prudence of application. Sadly, that too is an art not so easily learned, except by falling down, getting up, and reflecting.

In addition to the lesson of “not caring so much” (i.e., being above the criticisms/jokes), I would add it’s helpful to be below the compliments people give you.

The other great comment read along the lines of “known-knowns, known-unknowns, unknown-knowns, and unknown-unknowns” a la Rumsfeld. Or as a friend restated, “ignorant knowing and knowing ignorance.” The point being, we do well on both personal and professional levels when we operate in the realm of known-unknowns/knowing ignorance.

Have most Trinity students read President Jones’ White Paper? No. But if they have heard anything at all, they know he ‘wants to get rid of the fraternities’. What we cannot forget is that President Jones proposed two ‘helixes’, one academic and the other social, “neither of which can be separated from the other.” In other words, it is useful to think of the big picture – the Jeffersonian, holistic, “intellectual village,” as idealized in the paper.

As I was reading the White Paper, several ideas came to me that have been on my mind since I arrived at Trinity in 2008, some of which President Jones touched upon. The first is the notion of belonging. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it rates as the third most basic, behind physiological needs and safety. The kids at Trinity who don’t feel like they belong here or to any particular community on campus transfer. And President Jones mentions this need. This lack of belonging cannot be answered by only an academic or a social solution – it must be a combination of both. We belong to both groups on campus, and to a larger campus community. These senses of belonging are inculcated by a strong academic ethos marked by intellectual curiosity, where students are inextricably tied to professors in and outside of the classroom, and when we feel we are welcome across campus anywhere we go, as President Jones says, on a meritocratic basis.

A couple of months ago I was having a conversation with my father on pedagogy and the recent acts of bigotry and prejudice at Trinity. Out of that conversation, I came to realize that these acts occur because there is a disconnect in values between some students and the larger campus community. The value system exemplified by our mission statement has not been fully institutionalized – our values are not cohesive, our community is dysfunctional. We lack communal norms. This too can be solved by both an academic and social solution. When students come to Trinity “for the right reasons,” when students and faculty are on the same page, we establish communal norms. When we all share certain communal academic and social experiences, such as the first-year “great books” seminar program proposed by President Jones, norms are established. The best academic model is that of the Socratic method, of proleptic questioning: the faculty ask leading questions that provoke knowledge that a student has but has not yet put together in a coherent fashion. Students come to class having done the reading and are excited to engage in difficult material. This is what we must inculcate at Trinity.

Let’s not get lost in the particulars and remember that there is a greater purpose to the intertwined helixes. Let’s move forward, start a conversation, and ask the hard questions. Let’s be present and active in our little “academic village.”

It’s funny that China is already Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer, because it was the United States who first convinced the Saudis to guarantee oil  with the Chinese in order to gain China’s support for economic sanctions against Iran.

This one sentence was just in a list of unfinished drafts I have for the blog; no links present. Occasionally I’ll start something and never finish, coming back to it months later to find the tidbit was actually interesting.

It is thrilling to follow Andrew Sullivan’s chronicle of the tension, release, drama, and aftermath this evening. Also, Nicholas Jackson‘stech and political insights (source of the “Rainbow Empire State Building” photo at right).

Ten years from now, it will seem as hard to believe that couples of the same sex could not get married as it was, by the late 1970s, to believe that couples of different races could not get married in a number of states barely a decade before. This barrier will fall much more quickly than that one did.

A long and happy marriage has been the main positive event in my life. I am glad that more people will have the opportunity.

Please just read him already!

In the interim we had the Mao years, which, politically speaking, were kind of like being strapped in the passenger seat of a stolen Lexus at 3:00 a.m. with your good friend Gary Busey at the wheel huffing paint and sucking down his third bottle of Goldschläger.

This is an exhortation to please read Jottings from the Granite Studio, the blog of Jeremiah Jenne, who is the academic dean and teaches Chinese history at IES Beijing, the study-abroad program I attended last fall.

Today was a gloriously sunny day in Santa Cruz, California. We took the dogs down to the beach to get a run in and then stopped for ice cream down at Marianne’s. That is also an exhortation to try out the combination of Horchata and Mexican Chocolate ice cream. The two together must be divine inspiration.

“The project of the first two years has been to effectively deal with the legacy issues that we inherited, particularly the Iraq war, the Afghan war, and the war against Al Qaeda, while rebalancing our resources and our posture in the world,” Benjamin Rhodes, one of Obama’s deputy national-security advisers, said. “If you were to boil it all down to a bumper sticker, it’s ‘Wind down these two wars, reëstablish American standing and leadership in the world, and focus on a broader set of priorities, from Asia and the global economy to a nuclear-nonproliferation regime.’ ”

Trying to figure out the correct balance between realism and idealism is hard. And this article (among many others), complains about the lack of an Obama ‘doctrine’ or ‘vision’. But I almost feel like Clinton and the NSC staff quoted are apologizing for not being more clear about that. They don’t need to – even if it turns out that the Obama ‘doctrine’ is some messy combination of idealism and realism that fully satisfies neither camp. This doesn’t have to be a flaw, and it definitely could be a virtue. We have a large array of philosophical systems in our policy ‘toolbox’, and we should consider using all of them as appropriate. This is, as Obama notes, non-ideological. And it’s also smart. Here’s what Obama could say to break through the clumsy rhetoric, or at least, what I would say:

“I believe in values, but I also believe we should pursue the best policies to advance those values. Both domestic and foreign policy represent shared national values that we hold as a country. Policy makes a moral statement. But invading a country to instigate regime change may not be best way to serve those values – if democracy protestors in a given country retain credibility in the eyes of the people when the US does not interfere, then we should not apply military force, and pursue other means of promoting our values. It’s a philosophy that espouses an idealistic vision while retaining the ability to tailor our policies situation by situation.”

There. Isn’t that simple?

Or maybe, its simplicity lies in acknowledging we must embrace complexity.

This is the liberal argument we have been missing. But it’s also a realistic argument that states the obvious. The deficit debate has measurably shifted to the right – first, the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission was supposed to be the centrist plan, the compromise. Then the Republican Study Group’s budget was labeled conservative, the Ryan plan was labeled ‘serious’ and moderately conservative, and the Obama plan came out to the right of the Deficit Commission. Viola – a new middle, seriously shifted to the right.

There seems to be two methods of leading and bargaining in a political context – first, “The American President”-Michael Douglas style, where a leader articulates his preferred outcome, negotiates and compromises. Or, the second, where a leader releases a bargaining position that is designed to appeal to the other side, already compromised from the ideal. The President embraced the second tactic from the get-go, and he’s received a lot of flak from the Left and the media for doing so. Personally, I’m torn – I’m sure the success of tactic #1 is idealized, where the perfect outcome only exists in movies, like “The American President.” At the same time, I think the country needs presidential leadership with an aspirational vision. I don’t see that vision articulated in the Obama White House. I see: “We’re cutting less spending than the other guy.”

So does the White House need more David Stockmans in the White House – and a more liberal-sounding president? Do we need more people like Jared Bernstein, Biden’s economic advisor who just resigned to join the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities? I’d like to think so, if only because I still believe policy is ultimately an extension of the values we hold as a country. And would that mindset cause negotiations to grind to a halt, and lose on every priority the president has? Ideological conviction doesn’t seem to have stopped the Republicans from winning the debate.