Three Cheers For Nervous Hand-Wringing

But doubt, when properly managed, pays rewards. It gives you more information. It helps you create coalitions, which is necessary in a society designed to be coalition-based. And doubt prepares you for those inevitable moments when what you hoped was true turns out to be false.

Have there ever been leaders who were comfortable with uncertainty and doubt? George Washington, who was always the first to cite his lack of qualifications for a job (Continental Army commander, president), said in his farewell address that he did the best he could with a "very fallible judgment." No one today would dare say such a thing.

Other leaders also come to mind, some more politically talented than others: Dwight D. Eisenhower, who before D-Day wrote a statement taking the blame for the invasion's failure; Bob Dole, always more of a pragmatist than an ideologue; and Bill Clinton, who could talk through eight sides of every issue, often until his listeners passed out from information overload.

But these are particularly polarized times, and we're in a war (or three), and no one has much patience for a lot of maybe-this, maybe-that stuff. If you want to become president, you probably should act as though you've never had a doubt in your life. Rudy Giuliani said the other day, "You face bullies and tyrants and terrorists with strength, not weakness." And strength means you don't sit around requesting more data.

This was driven home in the first Democratic debate, when Barack Obama was asked what kind of military action he'd take if the United States were attacked again by terrorists. His answer was criticized as weak. He began by saying he'd check on the emergency response to the attack itself. Then:

"The second thing is to make sure that we've got good intelligence, (a) to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and (b) to find out: Do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network? But what we can't do is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast."

Way too deliberative. Correct answer: I'd start killing lots of bad guys. (Better yet: Make pocketa-pocketa sound effects while pantomiming the machine-gunning of the enemy.)

Professor Rue reports that in Renaissance England, political jesters were allowed to poke fun at the alleged wisdom of the king, injecting a little doubt into the royal court. (Think Leno and Letterman and Stewart, live from the Oval Office.) In the medieval church, a devil's advocate would participate in the debate over whether a certain person deserved sainthood. And in ancient Rome, the victorious general returning from battle would have a slave trotting by his side -- a reminder, Rue says, that the general was a mere mortal.

"Doubt motivates inquiry, but it is also a source of humility," Rue says.

So as a nation will we rehabilitate doubt? Will we suddenly pivot toward greater tolerance of uncertainty?

I doubt it.

achenbachj@washpost.com

Joel Achenbach is a staff writer for The Washington Post and blogs at washingtonpost.com/achenblog.