Greenstein, Fred I. The presidential difference; leadership style from FDR to Clinton, with a new afterword on George W. Bush.

Princeton Univ. Press. 293p. illus. bibliog. index. c2000. 0-691-09083-1. $16.95. SA

In Hail to The Chief (reviewed above), Robert Dallek discusses how American presidents are made and unmade. In The Presidential Difference, Greenstein tells us why. Style, it seems, is everything; the very root of the electorate's favorable or unfavorable perception of a president.

Greenstein grades the personal skills and quirks of our last 12 presidents on a sliding scale of solipsism, attributing high and low marks based on how the chief executive applies, conceals, obfuscates, emphasizes and controls personal "qualities." Greenstein's style meter measures: "organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style [IQ] and emotional intelligence." You won't find much in this work about mistakes or triumphs of political strategy or public policy. Rather, it assesses the psychological differences between presidents and how personality has determined the success or failure of a presidency.

Of the 12 presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, according to Greenstein, score highest on all the above attributes, with Reagan nosing out FDR in the cognitive style and emotional intelligence categories. Greenstein characterizes Roosevelt with an epithet from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who called FDR "a second class intellect with a first class temperament," while Reagan's "cognitive limitations" were merely "worrisome" and his intellect "was more than met the eye." Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter peg the low end of the Greenstein style meter as "psychically challenged," running themselves into moral and political ditches as they tried to negotiate the hairpin turns of presidential politics. Eisenhower, "the Clark Rent of the American presidency," gets high marks for organizational capacity and emotional intelligence. He was also indulged by the electorate as a heroic, lovable American icon and thus forgiven his considerable shortcomings. Clinton was more a failure of promise than propensity. He desperately wanted to do the right thing, but despite scoring brilliantly on political skills and cognitive style, he flopped miserably on tests of emotional intelligence, organizational capacity and vision. George W. Bush is evaluated in a thin, hurry-up, ergo inconclusive afterword.

At the back of this book lies a rich vein of source material. The appendix, bibliography and chapter notes are a comprehensive outline for an entire semester's mid-20th century course in political science. Students (and politicians) should learn at least one valuable lesson from this thesis. Of all six personal qualities, Greenstein warns, one above all others, is most important. "Beware the presidential contender who lacks emotional intelligence. In its absence all else may turn to ashes." William Kircher, Washington, DC