Moral Evolution?...How About Leadership Devolution?

Moral Evolution?…How About Leadership Devolution?  Well, our sophomoric president is globe-trotting again.  These days find him in Japan telling the world that it needs to morally evolve.  In his inimitably condescending, patronizing, and didactic fashion, he once again held himself out to be the self-proclaimed patron saint of America and wanted all within earshot to understand that he was far better and more enlightened than his home nation or any of the leaders who had come before him.  Once again, I shudder to think how these foreign leaders think and speak of him in private after his pompous escapades.  This man has taken our nation backwards in so many ways and it seems certain that he will continue that effort, at an accelerated pace, for the balance of his term in office.   For a man who is morally bankrupt, intellectually transparent,  and painfully devoid of any intestinal fortitude, he does more second guessing of courageous leaders than anyone I have ever seen.  Our president is not qualified to judge whether the White House coffee is hot or cold, much less the life and death decisions made by our war-time presidents from eras past.   His “BIG I, little you” brand of moral superiority has long outlasted its amusement quotient. 

The great leaders I have known, both personally and in a literary sense, are those men and women who stand in the arena with you.   They are the ones who rise above petty differences and manage to bring people together in spite of principled disagreements.  They are the ones who inspire by their actions, not by their bravado.   They are the ones who recognize the price of every action taken, and can fully appreciate the cost of inaction when leadership is required.  A great leader makes a choice, states plainly why that choice is made, and steps forward to be held accountable for the consequences of his or her action.   They make deliberate decisions, but are unafraid to acknowledge mistakes and are big enough in character to change course when necessary.   A truly great leader will provide those he or she serves with moral and ethical leadership that truly inspires and encourages all who follow to aspire to something better than they presently are.  And when a great leader inspires, the inspiration comes from being one of the many and speaking from their perspective; not from being a holier-than-thou narcissist who speaks from above to the masses huddled down below.  Our president is none of these things.  He postures and primps, he harrumphs and belittles, his feet are forever planted in sand, he is inherently lazy and the only voices to which he pays heed are the nonsensical musings that he generates himself. 

It is bad enough that our nation has been cursed to have this man as president for the last seven and a half years; it is downright insufferable that he must showcase his pitiful competence around the globe.   For all of the damage Obama’s leadership has inflicted on this nation and this government in a domestic sense, the far more unsettling and potentially catastrophic cost is what it has done, and continues to do, to our country’s global relationships with friends and foes alike.  In due time, the American economy will rebound; the DOJ will once again come to grips with its proper role of enforcing the law as written as opposed to trying to create a liberal nirvana through executive order; the American people will eventually learn to, as a good man once said, judge their neighbors by the content of their character and not the color of their skin…without the ham-handed and bigoted bludgeon of the federal government.   In spite of what Obama has wrought, there will once again be jobs for those looking to work, compassion for those unable to work, and accountability for those who are able but refuse to work.  As low as we have sunk, this nation will recover domestically because of its inherent strength and principle.  But in the dangerous environment of world politics and power, where every day seems to rest on the hair-trigger mentality of some despot in a foreign land, we can only hope and pray that America’s brief (in the sands of time) respite from world leadership will not leave a permanent scar.  How much of the capital that the United States has earned over the decades with our most precious blood left on foreign lands has been frittered away by this idealistic lightweight?  We can only hope and pray that our next President will have the intelligence, the character, and the courage to lead this nation back to prominence as the leader of freedom and dignity for all, international respect for all peoples, and the willingness (God forbid) to make the hard decisions when no one else will.