This is CBS, I On the World. I'm John Batchel. Statesmanship. A word that I learned most recently

dates to the 1970s. So 50 years later, it's good to review that word, its meaning, especially

when it comes to the American presidency.

And where did it go?

It was just here 50 years ago.

I welcome Stephen F. Hayward, the Edward Gaylord distinguished visiting professor at Pepadine University School of Public Policy, writing of statesmanship and other terms, at Civitas Outlook,

part of the Civitas Institute at the University of

Texas. Professor, a very good evening to you. Statesmanship, 50 years ago. What was it? It sounds

flattering. Good evening to you. Well, good evening, John. It's really an old term that was used

really for centuries. And then it started going out of favor about 50 years ago for a bunch of, I think, bad reasons.

But essentially, we usually think of someone as a statesman who stands above the cut of ordinary

politicians, right?

So we think of Lincoln, George Washington, Churchill, Napoleon, perhaps, although he has a more

mixed reputation.

And it always meant someone of extraordinary insight and leadership capabilities.

And we quit using a term, both in academic political science and in history and in biography,

and even in journalism, for a whole bunch of bad reasons.

One is academic political scientists think it's unscientific.

They think if you can't measure something

quantitatively, it's not meaningful, which I think is dumb. Second, it's kind of inegalitarian. You know,

a statesman is somebody we think of as having special excellence as a human being, which I think is

also true. And that cuts against the grain of the radical egalitarianism that gnaws away of so many of our

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