President Obama Is Good at Postponing anything that Is Not in His Immediate Political Interest — Conservative Charles Krauthammer Harpoons the President’s Lack of Leadership Courage and Liberal Dylan Ratigan Laments the President’s Lack of Robert Bly’s “Zeus Energy”

18 November 2011

Two recent essays — one Left, one Right — correctly point out what is wrong with American leadership

First, from the political Right

Conservative Charles Krauthammer yesterday pointed out that President Obama failed to accomplish much of significance, even while he controlled Congress. The columnist is irritated that the President blames Republicans for his own failures to lead.

Given President Obama’s lack of principled leadership, Krauthammer castigates him for now taking a “we can’t wait” tone with the public.

Krauthammer points to several facts that reveal (what I would call) cowardly political conniving on the President’s part. Paraphrased, the columnist’s points are these:

During the debt ceiling debate, the President vowed to veto any short-term agreement that would not get him past the midterm elections.

The Administration also pressured the failing solar company, Solyndra, not to announce layoffs, until the day after the election.

And the President’s announced decision to wind down the Afghanistan troop surge in September 2012 cannot be militarily explained (in Krauthammer’s view) except as a bid for a reelection talking point that precedes the November election.

Similarly, to keep Democratic Party environmentalists in his corner:

We can’t wait. Except for certain exceptions, such as the 1,700-mile trans-USA Keystone XL pipeline, carrying Alberta oil to Texas refineries, that would have created thousands of American jobs and increased our energy independence.

For that, we can wait, it seems. President Obama decreed that any decision must wait 12 to 18 months — postponed, by amazing coincidence, until after next year’s election.

Second, from the political Left

Liberal commentator Dylan Ratigan indirectly took the President to task for lacking what poet Robert Bly terms “Zeus energy.”

Ratigan explained that Bly’s concept has to do with almost mythically powerful and community-oriented men, whose example simultaneously guides young people’s aspirations.

The President, says Ratigan, does not come out well on the Zeus leadership spectrum:

Whether we look at George Bush, Barack Obama, Tim Geithner, Eric Holder -- irresponsible cowboys or weak conciliators afraid of resolve -- we see the tragic lack of Zeus energy in our authority figures.

The ideal of service to society is subverted in favor of service to money and power. We hunger for authority with integrity, but we find little nourishment.

The word “integrity” says it all

Krauthammer and Ratigan, political poles apart, agree that the President lacks integrity.

Krauthammer’s essay, by implication, makes the Integrity case by using the President as a good example of how not to lead.

Ratigan’s column indirectly explains that Integrity requires an ethically unbreakable connection to a genuinely positive principle that is greater than one’s self.

The moral? — Integrity is vital to recovering our sense of the American Dream

We cannot continue to follow leaders and institutions that lack integrity.

A culture without sound examples of Feminine and Masculine ethically-principled leadership will not take us anywhere we really want to go. It would be good to remember that more often than we do.

PeteFree.com

President Obama Is Good at Postponing anything that Is Not in His Immediate Political Interest — Conservative Charles Krauthammer Harpoons the President’s Lack of Leadership Courage and Liberal Dylan Ratigan Laments the President’s Lack of Robert Bly’s “Zeus Energy”