"Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. Bush had strong nerves. Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel"
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“Strong nerves” is doing a lot of political work here. Barnes isn’t just praising temperament; he’s smuggling in a whole theory of leadership that treats hesitation as moral failure and decisiveness as virtue, regardless of what’s being decided. The line flatters a certain voter fantasy: that history is shaped by lone executives who simply need the stomach to act, not the patience to verify, persuade, or anticipate second-order consequences.
The subtext is factional, not psychological. By defining “nerves” as a willingness to anger people, Barnes casts unpopularity as evidence of courage and popularity as evidence of softness. That’s a convenient inversion for partisan argument: it reframes contested policy or strategic restraint as character weakness. The swipe at Obama as a “people pleaser” isn’t an observation so much as a coded critique of deliberation, coalition-building, and rhetorical empathy - leadership styles often associated with liberal governance. In this framing, consensus becomes suspect: if people agree with you, you must not have done anything tough.
The Clinton example is the keystone, because it retroactively moralizes the pre-9/11 era. “Passed up a chance” compresses murky intelligence, legal constraints, and risk calculus into a clean parable of cowardice. Bush, by contrast, is granted “strong nerves” as a personal attribute, not judged by outcomes. Barnes is less interested in the messy record than in an archetype: the president as action hero, measured by audacity, insulated from accountability by the romance of resolve.
The subtext is factional, not psychological. By defining “nerves” as a willingness to anger people, Barnes casts unpopularity as evidence of courage and popularity as evidence of softness. That’s a convenient inversion for partisan argument: it reframes contested policy or strategic restraint as character weakness. The swipe at Obama as a “people pleaser” isn’t an observation so much as a coded critique of deliberation, coalition-building, and rhetorical empathy - leadership styles often associated with liberal governance. In this framing, consensus becomes suspect: if people agree with you, you must not have done anything tough.
The Clinton example is the keystone, because it retroactively moralizes the pre-9/11 era. “Passed up a chance” compresses murky intelligence, legal constraints, and risk calculus into a clean parable of cowardice. Bush, by contrast, is granted “strong nerves” as a personal attribute, not judged by outcomes. Barnes is less interested in the messy record than in an archetype: the president as action hero, measured by audacity, insulated from accountability by the romance of resolve.
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| Topic | Decision-Making |
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