THE PRESIDENCY by HUGH SIDEY: Of Reconciliation and Detachment

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Of course, manners maketh men, not policies, and it will take more than affability and good intentions to repair the moral ravages of Watergate. The President still maintains a curious attitude of detachment from the White House and the office of the Presidency. He continues to view the Watergate scandal from the wings, implying that it was something done by people he hardly knew and for whom he was not responsible. His new State of the Union message last week left the clear impression that he feels Congress is almost entirely responsible for not producing an adequate legislative program. It is as if he perceives his duty to be to list his wants, then fly off and wait for somebody else to get the job done.

One Nixon view of the national moral crisis is that it is the work of the press that insists on pointing out the problems. The actions of the White House somehow are not considered as consequential as the reports on them.

The history of the Presidency shows not much got done when Presidents spent their time looking for others to blame for the nation's woes. The men remembered are the ones who shouldered the responsibility, went to work and solved the problems, no matter who created them.