the commodity of confidence

Was considering and contemplating how -- sometimes when someone with authority seems aggressive or unreasonable, the choice of tactics could be rooted in insecurity.  Then I ran across this passage in Robert Dallek's JFK biography, An Unfinished Life:

Robert Kennedy, who was working as an attorney at the Justice Department, was reluctantly persuaded to take over managing the campaign [Congressman John F. Kennedy's 1952 campaign for Senate].  "I'll just screw it up," he told Kenneth O'Donnell, who was one of Jack's inner-circle advisers, objecting that he knew nothing about electoral politics. 

But he agreed to take on the job when O'Donnell warned that without him the campaign was headed for "absolute catastrophic disaster."  Bobby worked eighteen-hour days, driving himself so hard that he lost twelve pounds off a spare frame. 

He put in place a Kennedy organization that reached into every part of the state and stirred teams of supporters to work almost as hard as he did.  In addition, he took on difficult, unpleasant jobs Jack shunned.  When he found professional politicians hanging around the Boston headquarters, he threw them out. 

"Politicians do nothing but hold meetings," he complained.  "You can't get any work out of a politician."  When Paul Dever's organization, which began to falter in the governor's race, tried to join forces with Kennedy's more effective campaign, Bobby shut them off.  "Don't give in to them," Jack told his brother, "but don't get me involved in it." 

Bobby had a bitter exchange with Dever, who complained to Joe about his abrasive son, with whom he refused to deal in the future.

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He wades in, p---es  off some folks, makes at least one life-long enemy, and why?  The answer lurks in his own statement before he even gets involved:  "I'll just screw it up."

That doesn't make him a bad person, & doesn't mean he didn't do a creditable job, in many aspects.  His brother got elected Senator.  The only point I'm thinking about is the fact that when someone's being all intense & going, "You get me that thing I need right now before I run-in-and-raise-cain-with-your-boss-yadda-yadda!!" one gets the feeling of -- Help! This person's attacking me!
when probably the fact is, the person is
running from their own nervousness and worry about their authority and ability and others' confidence in them.

..."I'll just screw it up."

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{An Unfinished Life.  Robert Dallek.
Copyright, 2003.  Little, Brown, and
Co.  Boston.}

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