The things that are being talked about are not always the most important issues, and the issues that are left by the wayside are not always the least important issues. There are only a few people or events that have enough influence to determine the topics that are foremost in the national mind. Obviously the president can bring issues to the top of the agenda by mentioning them in his State of the Union address. But, also when there is a national tragedy the public cries out in unison - WHY? So, with the national tragedy of the Bush administration in its 5th year we can hear the public crying out - WHY?
Good leadership has vision. It has a vision to look forward and expect the unexpected. No one can predict precisely what will happen in the future, but everyone knows that some good things will happen and some bad things will happen. That is just the way life on Earth is. So, the job of a leader to find the experts that can calculate the probability of likely and even unlikely events. A good leader should know that the likelihood of a major national tragedy is likely to happen almost every year.
So, it is obvious that a poor leader lacks vision and has no idea what types of national disasters could possibly happen. When Condi Rice lied to us about not knowing that terrorists might fly airplanes into buildings we might have become suspicious that we might not have the best leadership. When catching Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan became a little to tough and George W Bush decided we would try to draw the terrorists into Iraq by placing 160,000 American solders as bate, we should have guessed that there might be a problem with the leadership. When Donald Rumsfeld told us how the Iraqis would welcome us with sweets and flowers turned out to be false we might have suspected a lack of leadership in the Bush administration. When the country of Iraq was looted and descended into chaos after the US exterminated Saddam's army we should have seen that we have poor leadership in this administration.
But, some of you may have been thinking "ya, he isn't very good with the foreign policy, but he's certainly good with domestic policy." But when the prescription drug plan that the Republican leadership forced on the nation by threatening some of the wiser Republicans to vote for it has now turned into a debacle we should certainly see the poor leadership in the Republican Party. Of course, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and FEMA failed to respond for days we should certainly know that we have poor leadership in the White House. When Tom DeLay was about to be indicted and the Republicans finally could see the future with some vision, what action did they take? They decided to do away with the law saying that a member of congress could not serve in a leadership role while under that indictment. This vision demonstrates the lack of good leadership in the Republican Party. But, when the self proclaimed "Party of Ethics" continues to be exposed in one ethics violation after another one would think that we would finally realize that the Republican leadership is one of the worst collection of leaders in American History. But, then again half the country still seems to be in denial.
How many more actions of poor leadership will it take before the American people have the guts to fix the problem?
