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We Americans seem to agree on one thing; that there is a colossal vacuum of leadership throughout almost all of American government.
Oh, from time to time we find a good egg, but they seem to be so few and far between.
And here we are, smack dab in the middle of electing some more.
We wonder when it's going to change.
Well, it's not going to. That is unless the conditions that spawn governmental leadership change.
Under the present conditions we cannot get the best and brightest to run for office. Simply put, if the scrutiny doesn't go away, the best will keep going away.
Who in god's name would want to run for elected office when their entire lives are open to ruthless and ignorant dissection? A dissection that none of us, by the way, could survive. I know I couldn't.
Because someone smoked a joint in their twenties they're lambasted in their forties. Because someone had an affair they're precluded from being a serious candidate. Because someone has changed an opinion that they held thirty years ago they can't possibly be sincere in their opinion now. Because one associated with a certain person years ago they must be a disciple of that person today.
The list goes on and on.
First, we understand that leaders never will be morally perfect right? It's an impossible standard that none can live up to. And yet every moral shortcoming is exploited, magnified and sautéed by partisan political hacks, a lustful bloodthirsty media and an astonishingly naïve and vulnerable electorate (yeah, that's you and me).
I want a leader whose character can by and large be admired, certainly. Especially in the areas that matter to leadership: honesty, authenticity, fairness, courage, compassion, strength, resolve. If they were drunk in public ten years before I could care less. Seriously. I really don't care.
The question should be, do they have the talents that matter to political leadership? Are they smart? Bipartisan? A collaborator? A consensus builder? Open to being wrong? Able to work with those of a very different opinion and find common ground? Are they creative? Do they have ideas that might make a difference?
Some people think better pay would attract better candidates. Not true. Excellent leaders can give eight years or so and then go back to their professions and make a good buck again. That's how it was set up originally anyway. American politics was never meant to be a lifelong calling. The emphasis should be service not moneymaking.
No, the problem is the scrutiny.
There was a time when our government was led by those who were indeed our best and brightest. That was at the very beginning. Ah...Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington where have you gone?
And from time to time we've had greatness find its way out of the muck: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin for example.
And yet, Ben Franklin was a notorious womanizer, Jefferson got a slave pregnant, Adams was a big-headed crank and Washington owned slaves. What would pundits do today with Abraham Lincoln's depression and his wife's looniness? With Teddy Roosevelt's boisterousness and FDR's affair?
And yet look at what they all accomplished.
Don't get me wrong, I don't venerate these actions and/or characteristics by these most human of men and women; they simply didn't keep these leaders from accomplishing great things. The scrutiny of today, though, might have put them all on the sidelines.
The problem is further exacerbated by those who do run for office, those who look to fill the void left by the good leaders.
Indeed, we are often left with entitled sociopathic egos that make closets moot. They believe they are above anything anyone could find on them anyway. Or we get dull wits who can beat one drum and one drum only.
"In the absence of true leadership," quoth the movie The American President, "anyone will step up to the plate."
Someone has to stop our reckless careening down this judgmental snake hole; this great American suicidal self-sabotage.
But the media wants to make money and we the people buy sensationalism. That has always been true since time immemorial and will never change. Media will always look to stir the drink and we will always be there to lap it up.
Too, politicians want to win so they set about abusing any apparent weakness in their opponent that they think will matter to us the voter. And their rabid partisan cheerleaders demand it. That also will never change.
What's the answer? I've only got one. We've got to take the tool away that creates the bludgeon. We've got to evaporate the fuel that ignites the flame. We've got to remove the drug that creates the frenzy.
We've got to get the money. Take the money out of it. Whatever our society makes less lucrative simmers and ultimately goes away.
Bank on this, and you can quote me on it: Money equals volume.
I'll be on vacation next week, so I'll see you all again in two!
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