http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12799731/
American idols and American leaders
A look at the winners of the country's unpopularity contest
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 11:04 a.m. ET May 17, 2006
WASHINGTON – In America these days, we are obsessed with idols, but have
no leaders. We are mesmerized by every round of “American Idol,” but
despair of finding authority figures in public life we can trust to run
the country.
For a brief moment after the attacks of 9/11, voters suspended their
disbelief about the ability of leaders to handle their jobs. People
wanted the president to succeed: he was the only president we had in a
moment of profound crisis. Public attitudes toward the Congress, toward
business leaders, toward cultural institutions — all soared on the
strength of patriotic unity.
That moment has long since evaporated. Voters have lost faith in
President Bush, in Congress as now constituted, in leaders of all kinds.
The next election cycle — the midterm season now under way and the
presidential campaign soon to follow — will be about one thing:
leadership. Not just identifying who leaders are, but restoring the very
idea that leadership is possible.
The buzzword in Washington now is “sour.” The political mood is “sour,”
Karl Rove said the other day, because on TV Americans are seeing brave
men and women dying in Iraq. But the mood is far worse than “sour,” and
the reasons are far deeper than the evening news. America is not a
carton of milk, and the bleak public attitude isn’t the result of an
inevitable chemical process.
It’s the result of real action, or lack of action — of lack of
character, of guts, of adaptability, of attention to detail, of quality.
If there were a J.D. Powers category for excellence in political
leadership in this country, who would win it?
According to the polls, no one. Americans see massive, feckless
incompetence in elected leaders at all levels, from President George W.
Bush to Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. They see a Congress that has
lost what little sense of fiscal discipline it managed to acquire a
decade ago; a president who seems either unwilling or incapable of
adapting to changing circumstances; an electoral system paralyzed by the
never-ending pursuit of campaign cash; a national media often lost in
circus sideshows.
Watching Nagin on the MSNBC debate in New Orleans Tuesday, it was easy
to be charmed by his riverboat nonchalance — until you recalled what
historian Doug Brinkley reported about the mayor’s hapless reclusiveness
during Katrina. Watching the president deliver his prime-time address on
immigration, it was easy to be impressed by his forceful delivery —
until you recalled that his government admits that it can’t even keep
track of legal visa holders here.
It’s not just the men, it’s the events. Americans feel overwhelmed by
global forces beyond their control or even understanding — forces that
even the most competent of leadership would be hard-pressed to handle.
The planetary waves include: inexorably rising oil prices, gathering
environmental degradation, predatory Chinese trading practices, and the
seemingly unstoppable flood of illegal immigrants. President Bush has
focused, justifiably, on fighting what he calls “war on terror.” He will
— and may as well — take credit for the fact that terrorists have not
landed another blow on American soil since 9/11. But every expert and
every American knows that the peace won’t last, and the “war” isn’t
“won.”
In America, we believe in the ideal of “growth in office.” It’s one way
we try to reconcile our conflicting theories of legitimate authority:
the raucousness of pure democracy (no one’s above anyone else; only vox
pop matters) and the Platonic republicanism the Founders cherished
(leaders are special, born or bred). In America the people choose more
wisely than they know, the theory goes.
When George W. Bush stood on the pile of rubble in New York City, many
of us thought — or hoped — that we were witnessing a man growing into
leadership right before our eyes. And for a while it seemed that way.
After all, earlier in his life he had exhibited the ability to grow and
change, jettisoning the drinking life, taking seriously the political
heritage that the Bush name bestowed upon him.
But the personal pattern has not become the political one, at least not
so far. Politically, philosophically, operationally, he is the same man
today he was on Sept. 10, 2001. He made one of the biggest calls any
president has ever made: the decision to take us to war in Iraq.
Americans have concluded that it was the wrong call, not because we
haven’t built a democracy there, but because the blood and treasure
spent have not demonstrably made us safer here.
Consistency in a violently changing world can be a good thing. Voters
have concluded that it is not.
The way things now appear, the Democrats have a good shot at taking back
at least one chamber of Congress, perhaps both — if for no other reason
than that the president and the Republicans in Congress are so
sulfurously unpopular. But Democrats should be careful what they wish
for. Perhaps they’ll win the political equivalent of “American Idol.”
But will they have real leaders to accept the award?
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
|
