DO TELL: Obama’s White House Can’t Take A Joke.

Obama’s team has spent years trying to develop the image of a president both cerebral and cool — a man who takes his time, thinks things through, and refuses to panic or be rushed into bad decisions. They’ve given us an Obama who would rather be right than popular. (And this is independent of whether, on any particular set of issues, you think he’s right.)

On this point, the president’s staff might usefully go back and look at Chernow’s book on Washington. Washington, too, carefully cultivated an image — in his case, the reluctant patrician, called to the bar of politics against his inclination, willing to serve his country only because his country demanded it of him.

Washington, like Obama, liked to take his time over decisions. He hated the give-and-take of everyday political life, the horse-trading so crucial, even in a much younger United States, to the success of any legislative program. He believed in a strong central government, in part “to override the selfish ambitions of local politicians.”

Which is where the lesson comes in.

Precisely because Washington was a man accustomed to keeping a certain distance, he allowed himself to be persuaded by Alexander Hamilton to hold regular “levees,” at which ordinary citizens, neither vetted nor prepped, could come chat with their president. The president avoided most social intercourse outside of his official duties, but held regular dinners with small groups of legislators, in the hope of making them, in Hamilton’s words, “his constitutional counselors.”

Yeah, but Obama doesn’t like people, and lacks Washington’s sense of duty.