I think President Obama could have handled politics and policies differently. But he has been decisive strong and consistent - important qualities in a president. Mitt Romney is indeed an Etch A Sketch the antithesis of leadership.

Nixon was an awful president in many ways including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.

The one thing that the President can do is to establish a real energy independence plan. We have all the recources we need right here in this country to establish energy independence if we had the leadership.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way including George Bush senior Gerald Ford and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.

In our system leadership is by consent not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

For example I spent a lot of time with Reagan both before he ran for governor and when he was running for president. As a print reporter without the cameras I was able to really test the quality of their minds and their knowledge base.

In the past I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.

I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.

The standard rumor at the time was that Rumsfeld as chief of staff had persuaded President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as director of Central Intelligence assuming that that got rid of a potential competitor for the presidency.