National Leaders

Please give me the courage to wait. Many leaders fall when they lose their vision for  the community, a destiny greater than all their individual aspirations added together. A vision that is merely about this life becomes burdensome. A vision characterized as the individual's sole dream can be clouded as mere compulsion. Compelling visions are always transcendent. And genuine leaders see themselves as servants of such visions, their lives dedicated to their pursuits. They say that in politics there are no permanent friends and enemies. Let us give that to our politicians. But a leader with no clearly articulated agenda is on the wrong side of history. And a leader who will not risk his own political career if just to remain true to his dreams for the community is already history. Obviously it helps if the leader is a brilliant graduate from military schools in California or is a brilliant lawyer, and technocrat. But let him be wary that the top to bottom benevolent leadership model has been on the way to bankruptcy. Divorcing the greater community from the pursuit of the good smells of outright betrayal. And the people know it.