President Obama

The Presidential President

Sullivan:

Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is "tough" or "weak", we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored.

A lot of people have accused me of being an apologist, but it's this kind of leadership that leads me to believe, more often than not, that the president's conclusions are generally (though not always) solid, and that his decision-making process isn't borne out of a need to deliberately screw one group or another.

And while I don't always agree with what I hear from the White House, it's obvious that this president makes decisions based upon empirical analysis of known realities, and while we might not always like the end result, we can rest assured knowing that his decisions are generally made for the right reasons and are the consequence of a thoughtfulness rarely found in modern chief executives.

This deliberative, exploratory nature is one of very few top-shelf qualifications for being regarded as "presidential." I think over the years, we've forgotten what it's like.