A Failure of Leadership

February 24, 2008 | Filed Under Dan Scott, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture |

-By Dan Scott

Now that we are fully into the election season, we hear again the Democrat Party mantra, Change. Change here euphemistically means a change in leadership in the Whitehouse from a Republican to a Democrat. So let’s recap Democrat leadership since November 2006 when they took over the Senate and House of Representatives.

The response from Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the liberal Democrat Party was opposition to any change in tactics in Iraq, in short, the status quo. The whole of the Democrat and MSM response has been their claims we must negotiate and pull out, let the UN handle foreign affairs. Negotiate with whom? Terrorists? Iran and Syria who supply the terrorists? Off went Nancy Pelosi to Syria. Now we hear both Democrat candidates sent off people to Syria again. If we and the Europeans can’t even get the Iranians to back off on reprocessing uranium for bomb making what makes anyone think they or their ally Syria will back off on terrorism? Who supplied Hezbollah with rockets and weapons to attack Israel and who resupplied them? That would be Iran via Syria.

Iran has a vested interest in the failure of Iraq as a Democracy. Success in Iraq both politically and economically highlights the failures of the Iranian government’s own domestic policies. What the Mullahs fear most is what happened in East Germany, you remember, the West Germans prospered under freedom, the East Germans stayed poor and got to watch it all through the fence. Most Iranians are poorer under the Mullahs than when the Shah was running Iran. Such a failure is truly staggering when you consider the Shah was deposed in 1979, almost 30 years ago. If Democrats were actually paying attention to the issues of the Middle East, they would clearly see the peril of the position they are advocating. Leadership after all involves educating oneself on the underlying facts of the situation to resolve a problem.

What the Democrat Party has demonstrated time and again is their ability to sell anything. What are they selling now? Health Care. We see this salesmanship highlighted by the back peddling of several issues they campaigned upon by which the Democrat Party came to power in 2006. Chief among those campaign issues is Iraq. The Democrat Party capitalized on the dissatisfaction over the progress in Iraq, their goal to achieve power was to sell the premise that they had a better idea to resolve the problem. However, within a week of the election, Howard Dean, the DNC leader and architect of the campaign, was waffling on the question of a troop pull out from Iraq. How could Howard Dean waffle unless he didn’t believe in what he campaigned upon? Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi then told the President they won’t go along with a troop surge, it appeared the Democrats were quite happy with the status quo, which is contrary to their campaign pledge. Which brings us to the inevitable conclusion, Howard Dean’s 2006 Congressional campaign plan was about salesmanship, not leadership. The Democrat Party had no intension of delivering what they promised, they sold America to buy their vote. Just as the salesman over promised to get that sale to collect the money, the Democrats over promised to get your vote. Even Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore have come to the realization that they were sold and most conservatives recognize these two aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Currently, what’s happening here with the Democrats response is a political cover up and snookering once again of the Anti-war crowd. The Democrats want the status quo, by opposing a surge or any potential solution, they covered up their 2006 back pedaled campaign promises to the Anti-war crowd regarding pulling out of the troops. They also got to keep the issue alive in order to continue carping, whining and criticizing, that was the Democrats game plan all along. For most of 2007, the MSM pointed to poll numbers of George Bush and the Iraq war as if Democratic governance and leadership were solely dependent on the popularity of the issue de jour. There was no “New Direction”, like all Democrat issues, they require the issues to continue in order to justify their claims on power which they grossly mistake for leadership. Power and leadership are not the same. This is what the Democrats call Leadership? No thanks.

One of the hallmarks of leadership is the ability to listen to and incorporate diverse ideas which have merit to achieve a goal. The second hallmark of leadership is the recognition that what is popular is so because it was easily spun that way by the omission of the facts. A real leader believes the means must be justified by the ends it proclaims to achieve, that’s called consistency and integrity. It should go without saying that leadership is the ability to get people to follow you, however, there is a difference between leadership and salesmanship. A salesman doesn’t have to take responsibility of the consequences as a leader does. A salesman’s goal is to sell, and telling you want you want to hear is a standard tactic in sales. A leader takes responsibility for the outcome. In the end, it is irrelevant what you thought the product was that you bought, the real issue is that you bought it and the salesman has your money.

Contrast this with late President Eisenhower’s views on leadership:

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because they want to do it. (cornerstone of elected leadership by the governed in a Republic)
Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish, push it and it will go nowhere at all.
Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.
You don’t lead by hitting people over the head-that’s assault, not leadership.

Looking on the legislative side, the actions of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (Senators Clinton and Obama included) in their first 100 hours in power demonstrated the Democrat Party’s inability as a political party to take leadership. This brings us to their excluding the Republican Party from their constitutional duty to share in governance of the country. What they did was to prevent any amendments on bills under consideration before congress. This is was despite their campaign pledge for bipartisan government. Their refusal to allow a debate of ideas is not bipartisan governance and is a failure of leadership. The refusal to explain your reasoning’s or omit facts is an act of salesmanship, not leadership. No matter how popular the idea they have spun, the failure of the means not being justified by the ends is salesmanship, not leadership. The Democrat Party has proclaimed it is in leadership, however, their means of executing power is salesmanship. Leadership engenders trust, so far by the track record, the Democrat Party has demonstrated a total failure in this regard.

Now that the Surge in has succeeded Iraq, it is time to finish what we have started in pursuing the GWOT. President Bush demonstrated his leadership skills by repeatedly vetoing Democrat bills from the so-called one hundred hour Democrat agenda and their fatally flawed appropriation bills to the point they had to pass an omnibus spending bill for 11 of 12 bills reflecting the previous year’s spending levels and priorities. Ironically, it was a Republican President who demonstrated to the Democrat Party what leadership really means. Leadership is not criticizing from the sidelines, leadership is participating at the head of the line. Leadership is not about popularity, it is about responsibility, something Democrats still have to learn. Nor is leadership about forcing ideas down the throats of an unwilling population, that’s called tyranny, something else the Democrats still need to learn about. Neither Obama or Clinton at this point as Senators have displayed these qualities of leadership in their work or as candidates for president. No, we have heard lot’s of speeches devoid of details, loaded with euphemisms and lots of promises, all typical of the Democrat talking points, all of which are the salesmen’s stock and trade. Nope, no leadership here either!
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.

Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.

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