Captains are back! Is Obama the next captain?

The trend began in the Sixties with Vietnam and Watergate. “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam famously wrote, were the ones who blundered us into an unwinnable, senseless war that cost 50,000 American lives. Even the innermost sanctums of the White House, Woodward and Bernstein reported, were infested with a kind of Mafia-like, cut-rate, ruthless corruption.

Before Watergate and Vietnam, according to Gallup, three in four voters said that federal officials tried do to the “right thing” all or most of the time. Since the late 1970s, that ratio has dropped to one in four — and stayed there.

It didn’t get much better when the emblems of leadership in America were our two baby boomer presidents — a brilliant one who couldn’t fully grow up, and one who dismissed facts that might upset his rigid worldview.

The latest credentialed leaders to disappoint and dismay us all were the big shots on Wall Street, who took their MBAs and arcane mathematical risk models and drove us all off the cliff into the biggest economic abyss since the Depression.

The disaffection and disappointment of baby boomer voters has since been amplified by Gen X and Gen Y Americans who in many ways are even more skeptical of leadership, protecting themselves from disappointment with an armor of cynicism and dismissive, sarcastic humor and satire.

According to Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, there is a downside to the hilarity of shows such as “Saturday Night Live,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.” The underlying message is that no one can be taken seriously as a political leader.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama — whether you agreed with him or not — performed some-thing of a miracle. He got voters, especially young voters, not only to support him, but also to agree that a restoration of the idea of leadership was possible. He did it with his cool demeanor (message: I’m not craven) and by basing his claim on the net-based movement he represented. It wasn’t about him, he suggested, but his email list.

Now he has a chance to follow Sullenberger and Phillips on the roster of can-do captains.

But to succeed, he will need not only experience (and he is still light on that), but also wisdom. He must understand that, outside of the military, you can’t issue orders in Washington, even if your own party has a big majority in Congress and you are riding high in the opinion polls.

Otherwise, you won’t save the ship. You’ll cause a mutiny.

More from msnbc.com Credit card debt, terms limit holiday spending  ConsumerMan: It’s a ruby ... but it’s not the real thing Audi R8: German precision meets Latin flair  Battling for resources -- with guns, swords Cosmic Log: Light show sparks UFO buzz Giving back for the holidays? Send us your pictures

MORE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

The White House Section Front

Accepting peace prize, Obama defends war Full text of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech Obama: Afghan troop drawdown will be gradual NYT: Salahis rattle D.C.'s ‘sense of decorum’ NYT: Slim majority backs Afghan troop plan Obama is sued for White House visitor list Battle lines forming over TARP extension Obama outlines bailout for Main Street General: Bin Laden capture key to U.S. efforts White House to release new data collections The White House Section Front   Add The White House headlines to your news reader: