I stink at baseball. I can't throw, can't field, can't catch. I've always been slow of foot, courtesy of short legs and a sturdy build. I've never been fast, and speed is important in chasing down the ball on the field, or in running bases. I've also always been a good hitter, but my base running...
Well, most people can be leaders to some degree. Granted, there are some who simply are unsuited to any sort of leadership role, but most people can step up to the plate at some point. But for the job to be done really well the leader has to have natural ability coupled with experience. Experience alone does not make it happen.
Why? What is necessary to be a leader? Some aspects are obvious; work well with people, understand what you are doing, listen to the views of others, be firm once a course of action is determined. But there are intangibles that simply cannot be developed. Imagination, a real confidence without arrogance, the ability to get people to follow you even in hard times, etc. Perhaps the most important is to be able to instinctively grasp the proper course of action and implement it. Anybody can choose A course of action, but how many can choose the RIGHT course?
That is what separates the real leader from the wannabe. The wannabe usually goes with the consensus, but the real leader often bucks the consensus - even his most trusted friends and advisors - when he is in the right. Take Ronald Reagan. Everyone told Reagan he had to accept the Law of the Sea treaty because it had been negotiated for years. Reagan famously stated "this election was not about the status quo" and he vetoed it. Reagan often did things that way - and was rewarded with success. He KNEW the right thing and acted in accordance with that. He clung to first principles and saw the road that should be taken. The wannabe leaders base their policy on consensus and politically expedient ideas. The politician who makes a big deal of bipartisanship is a wannabe leader.
What brings this to mind is the juxtaposition of Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani in similar though different crises. Giuliani went forward with the New York City marathon after the 911 attacks for a variety of reasons, and Bloomberg, looking at the precedent set by Giuliani, attempted to follow suit. He ended up changing course and
cancelling it.
Bloomberg finally showed some good sense. This illustrates the difference between a real leader and a pretender; Bloomberg wanted to emulate Giuliani but the terror attacks on 911 were radically different than this natural disaster. The marathon boosted morale at that time and told the enemy we weren't changing our behavior for them. It also did not tie up valuable resources. Now we don't have anyone to tell we are standing firm (except a lot of wind - something that could well describe Bloomberg) and it would simply gum up the works. A real leader should not have to have been told the difference.
A real leader would also have realized the marathon was run two months after 911, not the next week.
And that about sums it up. A real leader should not have had to been told the difference. It was an
enemy who attacked us on 911, and that enemy had to be shown that we weren't rolling over. But what was there to prove to a hurricane? That Bloomberg couldn't see the obvious difference shows him for what he is; a leader wannabe. He is not a real leader, not a man capable of handling things when the chips are down. He is a non-leader with practice, doing perhaps at best a competent job because he has contingency plans and advisers to fall back on. He is not a man capable of actually seeing the right course of action. He has to rely on history.
There's nothing wrong with being that sort of man, and that sort of man can be a competent leader in normal times, perhaps. But it does call into question Bloomberg's judgment, and his many "I know better than you" crusades to stamp out smoking, fast food, etc. come into question. Why listen to a man who can't really see the proper course of action? Why listen to Bloomberg over sugary drinks when he can't even understand that the city of New York shouldn't waste resources on a marathon when people are
dying? Giuliani would never have made that kind of mistake.
And that is the kind of leadership we have at the top levels in America these days. We do not have leaders but wannabes. At the very apex is Barack Hussein Obama, a man with neither natural ability nor practice. Obama is all wind. He gives good speeches. He has experienced fighting the system, but not running it. He has no original ideas, no sense of how things actually work. He may have been an acceptable leader in a small-time role, say as the mayor of some Chicago suburb, but he lacks natural leadership talent.
And, not being a leader, he allows his "Czars" and advisors to run the show. These are men and women of ruthless experimentalist ideology, men and women (such as Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Donald Berwick, etc. who want to turn America into something it is not and does not wish to be. As a result, You have these disasters like Fast and Furious, like Benghazi to happen. Obama undoubtedly knew about both but, not being a leader, did not get out in front of them but let events run their course.
This is particularly true in Benghazi where Obama did nothing while he watched the attack. He then covered it up, in a classic example of a non-leader pretending to be in charge. A natural leader would have acted, sent in air strikes and tried to get boots on the ground. If that failed a real leader would have gone to the public and taken the blame. Barack Obama did neither. Instead he hid behind Hillary Clinton's pantsuit, behind the "Innocence of Muslims" video, behind anything large enough to hide him.
These are not normal times we live in; these are, to quote Thomas Paine, the times that try men's souls. America and the world are in a state of transition, one that is every bit as momentous as the transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. The future is going to be shaped by our decisions and actions NOW, and those decisions and actions are will have titanic impact on our children, and their children, and all the generations to come. This is a decision point. Now more than ever we need real leadership. We cannot afford amateur leaders, wannabes who think that because they have run some minor bureaucracy or have community organized that they are qualified to make those decisions.
Ed Klein recently published a book entitled "the Amateurs" in which he (and Bill Clinton) referred to Obama and his administration as a
bunch of amateurs. would agree, but take it one better; they are always going to be amateurs because they are a group of outsiders, of counter-culturalists who have always been quick to point out the faults of society but without any real solutions. They will never be professionals, because their whole lives, the purpose they chose to pursue, is one of opposition and rebellion. They are such bad leaders because they only see tearing down as the solution to problems.
At best Mr. Obama may become mediocre, a type of leader who follows behind his advisors. That will not happen, because the people he has surrounded himself with (and who are the ones who put him in office) will not let themselves be replaced, and Obama is too weak a leader to fire them and start fresh. So a second Obama term will look like the first sans restraint. Every destructive tendency the Obama people hold will be implemented in the second term, and no attempt to solve the real problems facing America will be made.
We cannot afford that. We need a real leader in the White House. The stakes are just too high.
We need a second Obama term about as much as the St. Louis Cardinals need to draft me to play shortstop.
(Thanks to Jack Kemp for inspiring this.)
