No. of Recommendations: 4
I don't think so. You seem the archetypal 'reasonable and prudent man'.
Doesn't matter. That's not the key part of the job.
I really hate to use him as the source here, but W had it right when he called himself "the Decider." That's the main job of the President. He decides things. All of the choices and questions and judgment calls in the federal government - and especially in foreign and military affairs - get funneled to the Resolute desk to be made by the President.
The most important thing the President does, day in and day out, is make those decisions. Which means the President has to be the sort of person that can constantly make high-stakes decisions on consequential matters (life and death sometimes) with imperfect information, sometimes under extreme time constraints. Without constantly revisiting or second-guessing or returning to them. You have to be able to make a decision and always be comfortable that whatever decision you just made, it was the right one. It's done. Move on. Everyone needs to follow you and get going. You need certainty. And since you don't have complete information, you have to be very risk-tolerant - even risk-loving. You have to love being the one making all the tough choices even though some of them will certainly be wrong.
That's a really specific skill set. It's a combination of arrogance, egocentrism and supreme self-confidence that few people have. High-level politicians usually do. Even the ones that seem "nice" on TV have that key skill. And ironically, reasonableness and prudence can be a little inconsistent with that skill - to succeed at being President, it's helpful to have massive amounts of confidence (earned or unearned) and not a tendency towards self-questioning or introspection. You have to be very comfortable in taking risks.
It's far more critical that the President be someone who makes decisions easily than someone who makes them correctly. To a point, of course - the President can't be boffing every choice. But you can't function in the job unless you're supremely confident and decisive.
