By Dr. John C. Hulsman*
The American poet Robert Frost knew the nature of the founder of his country well. George Washington, in Frost’s shrewd estimation, “was one of the few in the whole of the history of the world who was not carried away by power.” In Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, “Washington: A Life,” he makes it clear that, over and over again, the first US president made performance art out of his retirements.
Whether he was laying down his military...