True Leaders Needed

Dear Friends,

As we begin a new year with the world and our country facing so many challenges and problems, we need true leaders who can motivate us to meet those challenges and solve those problems.

It is difficult to define leadership or a leader, but here are some definitions that I like.  If we can find some leaders that meet these definitions, the world will be a much better place.

Here is quote from a website about Canada Small Business of all places:

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.
Put even more simply, the leader is the inspiration and director of the action. He or she is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality and skills that makes others want to follow his or her direction.  

Here is Harry Truman's definition of a leader:

My definition of a leader...is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it.

James MacGregor Burns, who besides being a presidential biographer and Pulitizer prize winning author was a political science professor at Williams College, my alma mater, has the following definition.

The ultimate test of practical leadership is the realization of intended, real change that meets people's enduring needs.

Rosalyn Carter's description of a great leader is what we really need today.

A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to.

There are a couple of concepts in these definitions that are critical.  The first definition talked about achieving a common goal. Professor Burns' definition refers to "people's enduring needs" and Mrs. Carter's refers to what people ought to do.  All of these references assume that there is at least a minimal sense of community, so that there would be some common understanding of a common goal, or our shared enduring needs or what we ought to do. 

Unfortunately too often in today's world it seems as though there is no real sense of community whether it is in your neighborhood, state, region, country or world.  The common good is too often thrown aside in favor of what I want or what I need.  The enduring needs of the people are thrown aside for the instant gratification of individuals.  As a result, it is even harder to be a great leader because a great leader must first motivate people to think about the common good instead of their own immediate self-interest.

Also unfortunately, too many of our would be leaders use fear as a way of gaining and motivating a following.  They use fear of others who superficially are different - different color skin, different nationality, different religion, different sexual orientation.  They use scapegoats who they blame for all the ills because that is easier and fits in a sound bite better than actually analyzing the problem.  It is easy to lead this way, but it is not great leadership and certainly will not get the real issues and problems that we face resolved.

Very few people are born with the personality and skills to be great leaders.  As you know, I was hopeful that President Obama was one of those people.  He certainly has the speaking skills and intelligence to be a great leader.  Those who said that he did not have the experience to be President may have been right, but he certainly was the best of the candidates.  I am sure that he is learning on the job.  I wish that I were more optimistic that he can adjust his personality and gain the skills to be a great leader because as far as I can tell in this country, he is our best hope.

His goal of bipartisanship is a lofty one because it requires a shared vision for the country and a sense of community that we are sorely lacking today.  I am afraid that his approach to bipartisanship is wrong.  When he directs his efforts at bipartisanship at the politicians both Republicans and Democrat, he misses the opportunity to engage the American people and ends up without really solving the problem.  When he directs his efforts at the American people, he is able to create the environment for a national dialogue that in and of itself creates a better sense of community.  It is hard work to engage the American people, as Harry Truman and Rosalyn Carter made clear in their definitions of leadership, but it is necessary and President Obama has the skills to do so. 

It is my fervent hope for 2011 that President Obama becomes the great leader that he can be and that we need, that he engages the American people in a conversation about the common good and that through those efforts he brings to our country and our world a sense of real community through which we can address the problems that we face.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Look What President Obama Can Do

Dear Friends,

By any measure it has been an amazing lame duck session for Congress, and the country will benefit.  President Obama certainly deserves credit as well as the Democrats in Congress.  Unfortunately, the spin coming from even the left wing writers underestimates what President Obama can do.  The last paragraphs of Gail Collins' column today in The New York Times (here) summarizes the spin.

But let’s admit it. Nothing would have gotten done if Obama hadn’t swallowed that loathsome compromise on tax cuts for the wealthy.
If he’d taken the high road, Congress would be in a holiday war. The long-term unemployed would be staggering into the new year without benefits. The rest of the world would look upon the United States as a country so dysfunctional that it can’t even ratify a treaty to help keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. The people who worked at ground zero would still be uncertain about their future, and our gay and lesbian soldiers would still be living in fear.
It’s depressing to think that there was no way to win that would not have involved giving away billions of dollars to people who don’t need it. But it’s kind of cheery to think we have a president who actually does know what he’s doing.

 I normally agree with Gail Collins and love her columns, but in this case she is selling President Obama's skills when combined with the inherent bully pulpit of the President short by a mile.  The strategy devised by President Obama to get the nuclear arms treaty ratified exemplifies how President Obama should approach all the legislation that he really wants.  Peter Baker wrote a great article in The New York Times today (here) entitled "Obama's Gamble on Arms Pact Pays Off".  In the article, Mr. Baker explains how President Obama was following his regular approach of courting one or a couple Republican Senators to get their support by essentially bribing them.  In this case it was Senator Jon Kyl but of course in the end, Senator Kyl turned against President Obama and vowed to vote against the treaty.  At that point according to Mr. Baker, some of President Obama's advisors suggested that he back off because it would be bad to fight and not get the treaty ratified.  Here is how Mr. Baker describes how President Obama got the treaty ratified:

Some aides counseled Mr. Obama to stand down. Losing a treaty vote, as one put it, would be “a huge loss.” But Mr. Obama decided that afternoon to make one of the biggest gambles of his presidency and demand that the Senate approve the treaty by the year’s end. “We’ve just got to go ahead,” he told aides, who recounted the conversation on Wednesday.
Along the way, he had to confront his own reluctant party leadership and circumvent the other party’s leadership. He mounted a five-week campaign that married public pressure and private suasion. He enlisted the likes of Henry A. Kissinger, asked Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to help and sent a team of officials to set up a war room of sorts on Capitol Hill. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had at least 50 meetings or phone calls with senators.

Although not included in Mr. Baker's article, President Obama included a lot of bribes in the form of pork spending.  Zachary Roth wrote an article (here) entitled " Russian arms accord may come at a cost".  These paragraphs sum up his thesis.

As a condition of support for the accord, Senate Republicans held out for a pledge from the Obama administration to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. That demand, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. After all, many of the warheads, built in the Cold War, are rapidly degrading.
But the modernization isn't likely to be carried out in anything like a rational, cost-effective way. Case in point: It will likely include more than $6 billion dollars for a uranium processing facility, to be built at the Y-12 weapons compound in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (pictured). Indeed, the states' two GOP senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, both said that money for modernization -- and therefore, in all likelihood, pork for their district -- was a key condition of their support.

Why is that a problem? In 2005, an independent, blue-ribbon task force concluded that the U.S. weapons complex, which occupies eight separate sites across the country, is way too spread out. Shuttering some of the more peripheral sites could save billions, improve security, and make it easier for the complex to adjust to the needs of the 21st century.  Y-12, it implied, was a top candidate for closure. But those recommendations were never acted upon.

So the President's strategy of constant public pushing for the treaty using anybody he could find to help combined with constant lobbying of Republican Senators and some good old fashion pork barrel spending was a successful strategy.  President Obama made it clear exactly what he wanted, he made it clear he would not accept any changes in the treaty, and he went to the public to get their support so that they would pressure their Senators.  He also used all the regular Washington ways of lobbying and bribing.  When President Obama really wants something, and he is willing to risk losing, he knows exactly how to get what he wants.

What I don't know is what does he really want.  What is he willing to risk fighting for even if he might lose? 

I am really happy and proud that he gambled and fought for the arms treaty.  It is good for our country and the world.  Unfortunately, I struggle to understand why President Obama has been unwilling to gamble on the other things that he says he supports.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Fear and Bribery

Dear Friends,

In case there was any doubt that President Obama has given up trying to change the way things are done in Washington, he provided us with two more examples today.  First, Larry Summers is using fear to get support for President Obama's cave in to the Republicans.  Reuters reported (here),

"Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip," Summers told reporters at the White House.

I guess President Obama adopted the tactic of fear from the Karl Rove playbook.

Now the Associated Press is reporting that the way has been cleared for the passage of President Obama's extension of the Bush tax cuts.  Here are the first two paragraphs of the report (here).

The White House and key lawmakers cleared the way Thursday night for swift Senate action to avert a Jan. 1 spike in income taxes for nearly all Americans, agreeing to extend breaks for ethanol and other forms of alternative energy as part of the deal.
Tax provisions aimed at increasing production of hybrid automobiles, biodiesel fuel, energy-efficient homes, coal and energy-efficient household appliances would be extended through the end of 2011 under the bill.

Another traditional Washington tactic, when you can't sell the bill on its merits, then bribe Senators and Representatives with more money.  I am not generally opposed to government subsidies for alternative energy, but I am opposed to bribery.  I read a quote in the last couple of days from Senator Franken (D-Minn.) that he was interested to see what happened about ethanol tax credits.  Well now we know.  I certainly hope that President Obama didn't just buy his vote.  I will write him (here) along with Senator Klobuchar (D-Minn.) (here).  They are my Senators.  I would urge you to do the same.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal