Pour une meilleure connaissance et compréhension mutuelle
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ASSOCIATION FRANCE ÉTATS - UNIS |
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Pour une meilleure connaissance et compréhension mutuelle
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Interview
Buy the book: Amazon.fr - OpinionJournal.com - Amazon.com
2004 was a passionate year for those interested in the presidential office of the United States of America.
While the whole world held its breath on November 2, a couple of months earlier,
Presidential Leadership - Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, was published. Edited by James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal and
Leonard Leo of The Federalist Society, the book's goal is to answer the question: what makes a president great?
How are those two rankings different from previous ones? Do you think they are more representative of the way Americans rank their presidents? Most such surveys reflect the left-wing bias of academia, and thus tend to give conspicuously low ratings to conservative presidents, especially recent ones. In contrast, we set out to poll an ideologically balanced group of scholars so that we could learn what scholars would think if their range of political views were similar to that of the population as a whole.
While the 2004 hardcover edition didn't offer a ranking for current president George W. Bush (the survey dating from 2000), the new survey ranks President George W. Bush No 19 out of 40, which is not that bad judged by what we hear in France. You pointed out that some presidents, such as Truman or Reagan, tend to be less well-rated when it's still too close to their term(s) in office. Do you think President George W. Bush could be better rated in a decade from now? Yes, and if Iraq comes to be seen as a success, he almost certainly will be.
I assume Presidential Leadership was mainly targeting Americans. The book is very enlightening, especially the essays on each president. Don't you think Presidential Leadership would be of interest to non-Americans interested in American politics and history and could prove to be a better way to understand the U.S., through its presidents? Absolutely. I urge all your readers to buy it.
If there is one or two president(s) the French should learn more about to better understand American politics and the presidential office, who would it be? I guess I would say Reagan, who, like the current president, was not well appreciated in Europe during his time in office. But he was quintessentially American, as were his policies.
On presidential leadership in economic policy, Mr. Robert C. Bartley wrote :
"The main job of presidents consists not of hyperactive interventions, but of reducing artificial impediments, largely erected by previous generations
of politicians for purposes other than advancing prosperity. When it comes to the economy, we can hope presidents are generally learning that the secret of
leadership is getting out of the way." I don't know enough about French politics to answer this question intelligently, sorry.
You run a daily column (Monday through Friday):
Best of the Web Today.
You've sometimes been harsh regarding the French since the country's opposition to the 2003 U.S.-led intervention in Iraq.
You keep on sarcastically referring to John Kerry as the "haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat".
Many of my fellow citizens have not understood the criticism toward France because of what they simply saw as a divergence of opinion. I would say the strong dislike of French politics arises from two factors: (1) the sense that the French are overbearingly self-righteous in attitude even though their actual positions arise out of crass self-interest, and (2) the sense that France has an outsized view of its own importance in the world. That said, I have been to France twice in the past two years and I very much enjoyed both visits. I think the French are lovely; I just wish they'd keep their politics to themselves. As for "French-looking" Kerry, this is mostly meant to make fun of Kerry. The French part is incidental. Back in early 2003, someone from the White House was quoted as describing Kerry as "haughty" and saying he "looked French," which were really weak insults--but Kerry complained bitterly, saying "They're practicing the politics of personal destruction." I keep repeating this mostly to make fun of Kerry for being so thin-skinned. Making fun of the French in the process is just a little added bonus. Interview realized by e-mail in
November 2005 by Carine Martinez,
Useful links (Back to the interview) Executives Examined The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo Talks About His New Book ‘Presidential Leadership’ - Center for Individual Freedom How's He Doing? |
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