First we have Harry Truman saying,

“I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That’s all the powers of the President amount to.”

Now I learn of this gem from Truman’s successor:

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

If only it were true. If only the presidency were a ceremonial position, an elected figurehead, the secular equivalent of a spiritual leader whose advice we were free to accept or reject by our own criteria — if only the Declaration of Independence were taken literally, with “the consent of the governed” understood to mean the individual consent of the individual governed — then I wouldn’t feel nearly so frightened by the upcoming elections. Clinton, Obama, McCain? They don’t seem so scary if you think of them as holding positions equivalent to those of the pope or the Dalai Lama.

What do you think? Did Truman and Eisenhower feel embarrassed by the overtly coercive nature of the executive office, or were they merely embarrassed by the idea that the rest of us might be on to them?

No matter what else you might think of George Washington, he deserves some credit for a more candid assessment of the position he inaugurated:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”