Why the Criticisms Don't Stick

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

The notion that Ronald Reagan by some alchemy is a "Teflon President," one with some sort of magical resistance to being stained by his own actions, is a natural precipitate of the high-tech political generation. The idea is glitzy, and probably wrong. .

The popularity of the Reagan presidency and every other one is better explained by basic physics. The specific gravity of Reagan's achievements still is greater than that of his failures. If the balance changes in the dark of some night in these next months, then every goof he has ever made, every policy that has failed, every miniscandal he has brushed against and even his beguiling smile will become objects of loathing. It could happen. It is almost impossible to predict when the public will decide that a President is more loser than winner. But the people let the White House know in a hurry when they make up their minds. It was some time in 1966 that Lyndon Johnson got the word that the Viet Nam War outweighed his Great Society. Then his funny accent and his habitual fibbing, which hadn't angered that many folks, became the focus of derision. None of Richard Nixon's political excesses kept him from crushing George McGovern in 1972. By the summer of 1973 the bulk of the Watergate crimes was beginning to crush him despite his stunning achievements in foreign policy. Every old sin, real and imagined, rose like a specter in the public revulsion. For Jimmy Carter it was about the time when interest rates and inflation were both hovering near 20%, the Soviets were machine-gunning their way around Afghanistan and American hostages were being held in Iran that a lot of Americans abruptly decided that his blue jeans were really tacky, his goodness unreal and his amazing ability to absorb facts unproductive.

Achieving this unhappy state of rejection , is not all that easy since the U.S. desperately wants its Presidents to succeed. Too often political critics measure a President against perfection. The public does not. Voters, after all must choose a warm body rather than an ideal. The scrutiny given the presidential contenders reveals each one's strengths and weaknesses, which are then compared.

A presidential campaign is by nature an exercise in negativism, this year more than ever. Reagan has made many blunders, from his tax and budget formulas to his press conference fictions to the tragedy in Lebanon, on through his insensitivity to blacks and women and the shady dealings of a host of his aides. Yet these so far simply do not outweigh the reductions in interest rates and inflation dealing with the striking air-traffic controllers, restraining Government spending, enhancing American power, emplacing new NATO missiles and fighting in Grenada.

Washington, which often seems to substitute a box score for a mind, has trouble realizing that much weight is also given in the presidency to optimism good cheer, obvious enjoyment of the job,grace,personal kindness,decisiveness,boldness,individuality and other rather misty elements. They add up to leadership, which is always imperfect but nevertheless creates a national momentum and vitality.

Those who believe that Reagan's popularity comes from a Teflon magic refuse to acknowledge his gains and exaggerate his failures. Mayors who feared that federal aid cuts would bankrupt their cities now run surpluses. The estimates by Reagan's critics that 3 million people are homeless proved to be overblown by tenfold. Such attacks diminish the true anguish of the needy and insult American intelligence.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., author of some of the most eloquent and telling critiques of the Reagan Administration, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that those who would depose the man in the White House had better begin "by recognizing why Mr. Reagan has been so effective as President." The Teflon tag is a slick stump slogan and it may stick to Reagan, but it does not really explain the political struggle that is going on.