What is "Leadership"

There were some strange moments during the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday between Mike Pence, the Indiana governor and Tim Kaine, the senator from my old home state of Virginia.  OK, "commonwealth."  I don't live there anymore, so I suppose I don't care as much about the formality.  OK, I don't.

What I do care about is a weird exchange between the two VP hopefuls that had to do with the odd combination of Vladimir Putin and the notion of "leadership."

Specifically, Kaine kept going back to a statement made by Donald Trump comparing the strength of leadership of Putin, the head of Russia, with Barack Obama, who sadly is the president of the USA.  That statement, and I'll have to paraphrase because I don't recall Trump's actual words, was to say that Putin was a stronger leader than Obama was.

Tim Kaine thought that was such an embarrassing statement that he kept asking Pence if he "really believed" what Trump had said, and I have to say that I was a bit surprised that Pence didn't say "Of course Putin is a stronger leader, and that's not even in question.  Obama is weak as a kitten!"

As I was wondering why anyone wouldn't think Putin was a stronger leader, it sort of came to me as Kaine said something else about Trump's statement.  Whatever it was, I realized that Kaine was talking far less about strength and far more about something like "inspirational qualities."  That's giving him the benefit of the doubt, of course.

Kaine, at one point, said that Trump had called Putin "a great leader", which was not what he said, meaning that Kaine lied explicitly, not for the only time, of course.  Trump said that Putin was a "better leader than Obama", which in the meaning of his context was perfectly accurate.

Obama is terrible at leading our country.  He has been unsuccessful at implementing any improvements whatsoever; the economy is limping along, Obamacare has failed miserably; our debt has doubled, ISIS is here already, our enemies don't fear us and our friends don't ... well, I think there are no friends left.

Vladimir Putin, whatever one thinks of him, is the leader of his country by virtue of having been "elected", or whatever they do over there, in the same way that Obama is the leader of this country.  I interpreted Trump's comments to mean that they're both the "leaders" of their respective countries, and in that role, Putin is a heck of a lot stronger than Obama.  I don't even think you can question that; Putin is a bully in  his role, and Obama is a wimp in his.  Neither is good, but Putin is "stronger" at it.

There was, I believe, a real disconnect in what the left thinks is "leadership", especially in the whole "force for good" way -- as the left defines "good."  I thought Ronald Reagan was a marvelous leader, because he had a modest number of core principles and fought for them, sure, but he got others to see his way and support him, plus he was very effective at getting them done -- and admired by the nation as he did it.

The left is too hung up on the "inspire" part, and too fearful of the "strength" part even to let it creep into their definition.  Oh, Putin leads all right.  He may not inspire much (I'm not a Russian, so I can't tell you), but he is their leader and he leads his country with strength.  The strength of a bully, but it applies.

Obama inspires, too.  Not me, and not half the country, but he can read a speech.  His fecklessness as an actual leader is based his having never led anything at all before being immaculated as president, and not knowing what to do other than to ram through legislation and issue illegal executive orders.  He is not a leader in America's sense of the word, which is why the rest of us were so confused as to why Tim Kaine could possibly have thought it odd for anyone to think Putin a better leader than Obama.

Of course, Kaine then lied and said Trump called him a "great leader" which, of course, he hadn't.  But the truth and Democrat candidates are distant cousins.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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