when james slazinger, the secretary of defense, is reported to have issued orders saying any military command that came from the white house had to be cleared by him. he was worried about tanks coming to the city. worried about nixon barricading himself and fighting it out. and that s about it. we re in a remarkable place where, and there are many problems with woodrow wilson, but wilson, before he was president, he was obviously at princeton, and he gave a series of lectures at columbia about the presidency, and said that the president by law and custom can be as big a man as he can. and i think what we re seeing, again and again and again, is that the incumbent is proving the president can be as small a man as one can. whether you look at all of these different fronts and you have the sort of emergency conversation which is deeply