To Err Is Human, to Flip-Flop Divine
NEW YORK — President Bush is working hard to convince the American people that John F. Kerry has a fatal flaw: He changes his mind. Or, in the current political lexicon, he "flip-flops." But isn't a willingness to change course -- even to admit error -- an asset in a leader?
Throughout U.S. history, important decisions, some of monumental proportions, came about because presidents changed their minds. In his first political statement, in March 1832, the 23-year-old Abraham Lincoln said, "Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I thought
The ability to admit error led to Lincoln's most important decision as president. During the early part of his term, Lincoln consistently said that he had no intention of freeing the slaves; he was furious at even the limited emancipation granted to Missouri slaves by Gen. John C. Fremont in August 1861. But, by the summer of 1862, presented with evidence that emancipation was necessary to win the war, he altered course, pushed the measure through -- and suffered politically for his change of heart.
Ronald Reagan, after taking measure of reality, also didn't hesitate to change course. What people remember most is Reagan's legacy as a tax cutter. But that's only a part of the story. After pushing through deep cuts in income taxes and seeing the budget deficit balloon as a consequence, Reagan ultimately repealed at least a third of the 1981 tax reductions that he had signed into law.
Presidents who have refused to acknowledge their errors, who have been blinded by ideology, haven't fared well. Take Herbert Hoover, whom presidential scholar Richard Neustadt described as a man with "a sense of purpose so precise as to be stultifying." Hoover's faith in private enterprise and his belief that the government should maintain a hands-off approach to the economy left him incapable of responding to the economic crisis brought on by the 1929 stock market crash. He was blinded by his ideology that government should stay out of relief efforts, arguing that people "should be given a chance to show whether they wish to preserve the principles of individual and local responsibility and mutual self-help before they embark on what I believe is a disastrous system" of federal assistance. Unwilling to commit the federal government to a new course, Hoover failed his country and was ultimately voted out of office.
