President Jimmy Carter wasn’t a dim bulb: He literally had a degree in nuclear physics. His Achilles’ heel wasn’t a lack of intellect; it was his insatiable desire to micromanage the holy hell out of everything.
[President Carter] was unable to delegate and was inclined to micromanage not only the significant affairs of government, but also the less consequential affairs of the White House.
The most familiar of these were what appeared as almost comical. These included his infamous (but true) monitoring of the White House tennis courts; checking the math on budget proposals; and taking a speed reading course to get through decision documents, rather than reorganizing the information and decision-making flow within the White House staff.
Newsweek’s critique was even harsher:
Carter's fumbling of the Palestinian issue at Camp David echoed a parade of similar missteps, misdirections and wasted effort that erupted as soon as he entered the White House. Jimmy Carter wasn't just a micromanager, he was a molecular manager, inspecting tiny pieces of White House operations and poking his nose into minute details down to the subatomic particle level—while rarely grasping the "big picture". As soon as he assumed command of the White House, Carter submerged and saturated himself in detail, probing and burrowing for statistics, appendixes and back-up charts, more numbers, more data. He did not come up for air for four years, and he never learned to effectively prioritize, delegate, or organize his White House, and he failed to effectively communicate with or inspire the American people. [emphasis added]
The ex-president knew it, too, but simply couldn’t help himself:
[Carter] was faulted for lacking the grand vision of previous presidents, and for obsessing over the administrative details of the office at the expense of seeing the big picture. It was reported that Carter once took time to resolve a scheduling dispute between staffers over the use of the White House tennis courts.
Carter himself even said: “I was sometimes accused of ‘micromanaging’ the affairs of government and being excessively autocratic, and I must admit that my critics probably had a valid point.”
For some reason, people find it hard to see themselves as micro-managers and even when they do, to change their behaviour. [emphasis added]
President Carter was like so many of us: He had his strengths and weaknesses. Being a micromanager in 1971 Georgia probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world; back then, the size and scope of governing the Peach State were limited. In 1971, Georgia’s annual state budget was just $1.057 billion.
By the time Carter left the White House, the federal budget was nearly $600 billion. Today, it’s $7.4 trillion.
That’s way too big for any one man to micromanage.
And when you include all the other presidential responsibilities — military, executive, PR, leadership, fundraising, personnel, vision — micromanaging is a recipe for disaster. But Jimmy Carter wasn’t the first Democrat in the 20th century who lost the forest for the trees — and failed to be elected to two full terms because of it.
During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson insisted on personally picking U.S. bombing targets, going as far as building a scale model of Khe Sanh in the White House situation room. As we all know, public opinion turned against the Vietnam War, leading to Johnson abandoning his 1968 bid for reelection, paving the way for (Republican) President Richard Nixon.
Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush were wartime leaders, too. For the former, he understood the danger of micromanagement, going as far as promising in the lead-up to the Gulf War, “this will not be another Vietnam… [our troops] will not be asked to fight with one hand tied behind their back.”
For the latter, with the ghosts of Vietnam now excised, W. leaned into the “vision thing” that had eluded his father, pledging to bring freedom to Iraq and, channeling his inner-Woodrow Wilson, to “make the world safe for democracy.”
The Bush Doctrine of 2002 was the most grandiose of all. Its guiding inspiration was to press on all fronts for the victory of freedom and democracy. President Bush eloquently summarized the charge in his second inaugural address. His premises were twofold: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” His conclusion was that “it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”
George H. W. Bush was a one-termer, because — despite the popularity of the first Gulf War — the American people were far more concerned with economic issues. (As James Carville succinctly put it, “It’s the economy, stupid.”)
Voters viewed the 1991 Gulf War as a side-quest; by 1992, they didn’t see the connective tissue linking it to our economic betterment. Yeah, it was nice that we won and we were happy for the Kuwaitis, but its relevance to our day-to-day lives was unclear.
Which meant, President H. W. Bush’s political failure was, alas, that oft-elusive “vision thing.”
By contrast, his son went overboard on vision. So overboard, George W. Bush looked us in the eye promised the impossible: No U.S. president has the power to “end tyranny in our world,” and after 53,533 service members were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan — with over 7,000 fatalities — the American people had enough, took the White House keys away from the neocons, ushering in eight years of Obama.
So let’s recap:
Carter and LBJ failed politically because of their management styles. George H. W. Bush failed politically due to a lack of vision. George W. Bush failed politically because he promised impossible results.
And now it’s President Donald Trump’s turn to lead a nation at war.
He’s not a micromanager. That’s never been his style. There’s ZERO chance Trump is spending his days in the situation room, personally selecting military targets, vetoing his field commanders, playing a live-action game of Stratego.
Trump simply wants to win.
Because he’s so famously transactional, he’s unlikely to suffer the fate of President H. W. Bush. Whereas the 1991 Gulf War’s benefit/relevance was unclear in 1992, the upside of being transactional is that the risk-reward/cost-benefit analysis is always hardwired into the equation.
It’s explicitly why we’re there!
There’s minimal danger the American people won’t understand the benefit, reward, or relevance of the Iran War, because that’s President Trump’s ENTIRE focus. This isn’t about an esoteric, high-minded, philosophical mission — like “ending tyranny in our world” or making our planet “safe for democracy.”
Instead, this is straightforwardly transactional: We’re leveraging American power for America’s betterment.
By killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (and most of Iran’s leadership), we’ve already achieved regime change. From eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile program, drone program, and terrorist network, the rest of our objectives are easily digestible — and the outcome, good or bad, will be fully transparent.
Either it worked, or it didn’t.
War is an outcome-based endeavor, and President Trump is executing a battleplan that begins and ends with the outcome: When we win, the American people will know it.
In other words, this won’t be the kind of thing the mainstream media can spin away.
President Trump has another asset: More than any other world leader, he’s comfortable with unpredictability. In fact, he uses it as a weapon.
As we discussed in the weekend’s VIP column (Not yet a member? Sign up today!):
War is unpredictable and messy. Controlling the narrative isn’t easy. Not to get all Rumsfeldian on you, but between the “unknown unknowns,” “known unknowns,” and the “known knowns” that turn out to be wrong, you’ve gotta be able to pivot.
War is the ultimate expression of American philosopher Mike Tyson’s timeless observation, “Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the face.”
That’s President Trump’s superpower: He feasts on unpredictability.
If the Hulk is powered by gamma radiation and Superman is powered by our yellow sun, then Trump is powered by unpredictability. He’s perfected being unpredictable into an artform. It’s second nature to him.
When the news changes, Trump changes with it. He’s different than a George W. Bush, who seemed to anchor himself in place — battling the tides — determined to outlast it all.
Trump is more like a surfer who rides the waves, blazing a new trail whenever one emerges. It’s strategic cherry-picking; he’s nimbler than his adversaries, striking hard when opportunities emerge.
It’s too bad President George W. Bush didn’t share President Trump’s temperament: If he had, he probably would’ve pivoted to the military surge years earlier — which means that fewer Americans would’ve died. But because he was so stubborn, Bush didn’t switch strategies until 2007.
By that time, he had already lost the American public.
President Trump has two other wartime advantages: unflappable optimism and plainspoken, translation-proof language.
Back in the 1980s, Peggy Noonan was a young speechwriter who fed President Ronald Reagan glorious prose. Her work on the Challenger speech — with phrases like “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and “touch the face of God” — was nothing short of brilliant.
But that’s not how President Trump speaks.
"Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack... Iran is no longer the 'Bully of the Middle East,'… pic.twitter.com/Gqi3Fb70j3
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 7, 2026
I’m unsure of the Farsi translation of “slipped the surly bonds,” but I’ll betcha a Diet Coke that EVERY Iranian man, woman, and child understood what Trump meant when he called the regime (all caps), “THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST.”
In PR, the medium makes the message. In many ways, President Trump’s communication style is picture-perfect for social media, X posts, and the 24/7 news cycle.
The mullahs? Not as much.
The Iranians are now offering clumsy apologies to neighboring countries for attacking them — while continuing to attack them. (Which, y’know, kind of muddles the message.) The mullahs have been duplicitous for so long, it’s as natural as breathing. Lying is a way of life.
They probably can’t help it.
But there’s nothing muddled about Trump dubbing Iran “THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST” and demanding its unconditional surrender.
It’s as direct as you can get!
And even if darker, gloomier days are ahead, President Trump doesn’t just share President Reagan’s unflappable optimism; it’s one of his guiding principles. Norman Vincent Peale’s classic self-help book, The Power of Positive Thinking, was yuuugely influential — so much so that Peale actually officiated Donald Trump’s first wedding.
Trump and his father were Peale acolytes—the minister officiated at the first of Donald Trump's weddings—and Peale’s overarching philosophy has been a lodestar for Trump over the course of his decades of triumphs as well as the crises and chaos. “Stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” Peale urged his millions of followers. “Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade.” It was a mindset perfectly tailored for an ambitious builder determined to change the skyline of one of the globe’s great cities.
[…]
In 1983, shortly after the opening of Trump Tower, Trump credited Peale for instilling in him a can-do ethos. “The mind can overcome any obstacle,” he told the New York Times. “I never think of the negative.” The feeling was mutual. In the Times, Peale called Trump “kindly and courteous” and commented on “a profound streak of honesty and humility” he thought Trump possessed.
All coupled together, it’s equipped President Trump with an unparalleled arsenal of wartime weaponry: He doesn’t meddle in minutia or micromanage his generals. His vision is clear and easily understood. His communication style leaves no room for ambiguity. When new opportunities arise amidst the “fog of war,” he’s comfortable pivoting. He promises what’s practical, transactional, and (most importantly) executable.
And his unfettered optimism can only be described as “Reaganesque.”
Before the Iran War began, many pundits worried over what kind of wartime leader the president might be. There were fears that his temperament was ill-suited for war.
Relax. As it turns out, President Trump was made for this.
All things considered, he just might be the most perfect wartime president of our lifetime.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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