Joe Scarborough’s Outspoken Essay Justifiably Bashed both American Political Parties — a Comment on Leadership

© 2012 Peter Free

 

28 September 2012

 

 

Two points

 

(1) Fact-based, intelligently argued perspectives are vital in a democracy, and ours has too few.

 

(2) One would think that most of us would refuse to follow people who combine analytical stupidity with cowardice — yet we do the reverse.  Why?

 

 

Point One — when intelligence surfaces, consider it

 

Smart analyses are worth paying attention to.  Witness Joe Scarborough’s well-expressed leadership outrage.

 

 

Citation — to Scarborough’s essay

 

Joe Scarborough, The Problem with Mitt, Politico (12 September 2012)

 

 

Why we care

 

I appreciate people who intelligently articulate positions that I may disagree with.  Joe Scarborough is one of these.  He is a talented expository writer.  His MSNBC show, Morning Joe, is worth watching.  The weekday program is unique in presenting liberal and conservative points of view in often thought-provoking ways.

 

 

A “thinking Republican’s” take on Governor Romney and President Obama

 

Joe Scarborough wrote:

 

Mitt Romney is in trouble.

 

Not because of a boring convention or a bloodless speech or a grossly inappropriate press conference, but rather because the man refuses to stick his neck out and take a stand on the critical issues of our time.

 

© 2012 Joe Scarborough, The Problem with Mitt, Politico (12 September 2012) (paragraph split)

 

These issues, writes Scarborough, include the national debt, Medicare, and out of control defense spending.  “Mitt” has no plan for the debt or Medicare.  And he would only further bloat the Military Industrial Complex.

 

Democrats are no better:

 

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Charlotte exposed him as an intellectually exhausted politician.

 

The man who brought Hope and Change to the Democratic National Convention four years ago exposed himself in Charlotte as a guy who has no new ideas and no clue where he wants to take the country over the next four years.

 

Obama is now reduced to mindlessly repeating the same tired lines he trotted out on the campaign trail in 2008.

 

© 2012 Joe Scarborough, The Problem with Mitt, Politico (12 September 2012) (paragraphs split)

 

 

What is the cure, according to Joe?

 

Courage:

 

Margaret Thatcher was tough and unapologetic about what she believed. Ronald Reagan was tough and unapologetic about what he believed.

 

They won their campaigns, changed their party and transformed their countries because they were conservatives who dared to tell voters they planned to radically transform their governments. They got elected and did just that.

 

Craven calculation, on the other hand, does not pay off for conservatives.

 

© 2012 Joe Scarborough, The Problem with Mitt, Politico (12 September 2012) (paragraphs split)

 

 

A basic leadership formula

 

Courage.  Vision.  A willingness to honestly be who one is.  Perhaps with a dose of respect-worthy ethics.

 

 

The moral? — Why is this simple formulation so hard for modern leaders and voters to put into play?

 

One would think that most of us would refuse to follow people, who combine analytical ineptitude with cowardice and lies.  We are not doing our part, as voters, by letting spineless pretenders stay in the vote-seeking game.

 

The political cowardice problem spreads further than just the candidates.