A good President of the United States – and there have been less than a handful in history – must be a "leader."

If a president is to be a leader, he must be a man (so far, at least) willing to say what he believes is right, letting the chips fall where they may, whether popular or not. 

Gerald Ford once famously said that before making a decision, he listened to the people, "keeping both ears to the ground." It was left to columnist George Will to observe that it was "difficult to look up to someone in that position." Accordingly, President Ford was never confused with being a "leader."

Conversely, a real presidential leader must be willing to say something like, in relation to the controversial World Trade Center mosque, that Muslims "have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country."

Here was a statement that left no room for equivocation -- in clear favor of letting Muslims construct their controversial mosque in Lower Manhattan. It was based on principle not politics, on commitment not calculation, on core beliefs not convoluted rhetoric.

How refreshing. How gutsy. How leader-like.

How wrong-headed!

The very next day, as we all know, President Obama furiously back-pedaled from his earlier candid comment, telling CNN that he wasn't commenting on the "wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding."

Nice try but waaaay too late.

The president's on-again, off-again comments sparked a heated national, pre-election season debate, alienated Democrat vs. Democrat, caused Republicans to salivate, and generally added to the public relations misery of an increasingly-shaky Obama administration.

Obama's mistake, as soon-to-be-former BP CEO Tony Hayward learned before him, is that sometimes if you're in the public eye it is better to make a "non-statement statement" than it is to spill your guts. 

If that sounds cowardly or insipidly politically correct or wimpy, that's because it is. And certainly the cardinal rule of effective PR is to never, ever lie. But…. like everything else a president or a CEO or any public leader says, the risks of potential statements must be assessed against potential rewards. 

And in this case, even though the president clearly believed the mosque should be allowed to be built downtown, he shouldn't have said it.

The "risks" –1) that such comments would alienate more than half the electorate who disagree with the placement of the mosque 2) that conservative talk show hosts would quickly turn the remarks against soft-on-terrorism Democrats and 3) that such candid comments would serve as the latest nail in the rapidly-shutting Democrat mid-term election hopes – clearly outweighed the "rewards" of winning praise as a standup leader.

The point is that it's the job of the PR counselor to discern, with hard-nosed political analysis, whether a given situation calls for straight-from-the heart candor or straight-from-the iron waffling.

There's nothing wrong with advising a client to make a waffling, non-statement statement, holding his powder in the heat of controversy in order to live to fight another day.

In this case, Obama's closest PR advisers, Valerie Jarret and David Axelrod, served their client ill by allowing him to bust out with his initial statement. The proof: their subsequent advice for the president to walk it all back a day later, intensifying the PR damage.

So what, if you were advising the president, would you have had him say about the mosque? How about something like this:

"We have to acknowledge, respect and give some measure of deference to the feelings of the family members who lost their loved ones there that day. But it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that … I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it."

A perfect non-statement statement, which is precisely how New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie phrased it.

Fed Up In NYC! (8/23):
Fraser- As always well articulated. However, you do miss a few points:

1) BHO made a BIG mistake in making his remarks to a Muslim audience when just a few days before, Gibbs said it wasn't BHO's place to comment on the issue.

2) BHO sticks his nose in places he shouldn't. He's done that from the start- (see the Beer Summit etc.)

3) His comments have a disingenuous ring to it- because he is disingenuous. He says things and retracts them depending upon the reaction he gets and how it effects him politically- not because he truly believes or stands by his convictions.

Again, this speaks to his immaturity as a leader and his inexperience on the big stage. (Or his elitist posture and that he knows what's good and right for us- even if we don't. You can stick Bloomberg in there as well!)

Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (8/23):
As someone who worked hard for Obama's election(when Hillary failed to get the nomination), sadly I have to admit the above comments ring with unfortunate truth. But what is even worse, those who would knock him out of office are hardly desirable alternatives. In short, we do not have a problem of which political party is best stuited for America. Instead we have a dangerous and shameful dearth of sound and believable candidates in whom the nation could have reasonable confidence.

Wes Pedersen (8/25):
The references to the mosque seem clearly to have been last-minute stuff-ins. "Hey, we've got to say something." Okay, how's this? "Terrific, Mr. President!"

Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (9/15):
Fedup in NY and Wes are both right on target. See the 9 minimum questions I raised that any beginning real estate reporter would raise about a significant development on important land.