“The C.E.O. in Politics” by David Brooks, New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/opinion/brooks-the-ceo-in-politics.html

The traits of successful presidents:

1. emotional security
2. sound political judgment
3. experienced personal setback/resilient
4. instrumental mentality

“They are resilient when things go wrong. They know how dependent they are on others, how prone they are to overconfidence. They are both modest, because they have felt weakness, and aggressive, because they know how hard it is to change anything. ”

“…Isaiah Berlin defines political judgment as “a capacity for integrating a vast amalgam of constantly changing, multicolored, evanescent perpetually overlapping data.” A president with political judgment has a subtle feel for the texture of his circumstance. He has a feel for where opportunities lie, what will go together and what will never go together.”