Our leaders do not lead
Let’s start with Tom Brady. On the weekend of the NFC and AFC championships, what I heard at the gym, from friends and family and in my neighborhood watering hole was, predominantly, talk of Brady.
Retirement day had to come, eventually. But he had defied the limits, time most of all, for so long. So, it came as a shock. And one most people seemed to mourn.
His was a career like no other. He was self-invented, unique.
The stats tell part of the story. The arm and aim just got better and better. The judgment, and ability to see many things happening at once, was singular. And there was his determination. He willed himself to greatness.
But, most impressive of all was the leadership. This guy knew how to lead. He did it by example, through his dedication, enthusiasm and lack of entitlement. And he did it by building relationships: Supporting and cheering on teammates. Letting them know that he believed in them and needed them. Taking care of them. He moved the troubled Antonio Brown into his home, twice.
Leaving the New England dynasty he had done so much to build, going to a mediocre, alsoran team and winning the Super Bowl the first year out: That was an incredible act of leadership.
And so was bringing the Pats back from a 25-point deficit in Super Bowl LI (a win) and the Bucs from a 24-point deficit in a playoff game just days ago (a loss).
Imagine if we had a leader of Brady’s caliber in our politics.
I think this: The country isn’t broken, but our politics is. America is strong, but our leaders, across the board, are lame.
The quiet heroes who man our hospitals, our schools, our police and fire forces, our armed forces, heck, our hospitality services, are all doing their thing. Those who hold families together, although they often do not make a just wage, keep on keeping on. Like Brady.
But our elites? They reek of triviality and falseness.
Four examples:
• The president will apparently not consider anyone who is not a Black woman for the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
This is dumb and insulting to all.
By pandering and playing identity politics, he cheats the eventual nominee and he cheats the millions of us who would be gratified to see an African American woman on the Court.
If you say, “why not the best,” and the pick is ultimately an Asian American, a Hispanic American, or an African American, you are affirming and lifting up: This nominee beat everyone.
If you say, this person was the best of a category of human beings, you have condescended mightily.
This sort of thing is not new. Ronald Reagan did it. (“Time for a woman,” he said.) And George Herbert Walker Bush gave us Clarence Thomas, whom he cynically called highly qualified. But Mr. Biden seems to believe his own slogans and to mistake clichéd PC thinking for brave truth.
He put himself in a similar box when he chose Kamala Harris to be his running mate, although there were more experienced pols (men and women, Black and white) available. She may yet grow. I hope so. But not even the most ardent Democrat will tell you that she is ready to lead her party or step into the presidency.
There is no need for the boxes, or the litmus tests. Mr. Biden needs to be smarter than this. He is head of state.
• On the other hand, I sort liked it when he muttered a mild curse regarding a White House reporter’s baiting question. I don’t think presidents should call reporters names. But I am embarrassed by reporters posturing and identifying with a side at press conferences. The lack of respect for public officials and for themselves — the self-indulgence — hurts the press.
We can be, and have been, better.
• There can be no elite that has failed more spectacularly over the last 50 years than the American foreign policy establishment.
They gave us Vietnam, the arms race, “free trade” and globalization, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now we are on the verge of a Russian-Ukrainian war because the foreign policy establishment decided, in the Bill Clinton years, that NATO should be expanded to include all of Russia’s neighbors and former buffer states and, finally, Ukraine. Once again, they are not just wrong but spectacularly wrong. Sadly, Mr. Biden takes literally the clichés of this elite as well.
• But Mr. Biden is profoundly right about one truth he has stumbled upon: Republican Congressional leadership has no program. Zilch. They offer only obstruction. So Mr. Biden’s “just tell me one thing they are for,” is as good a slogan as Truman’s “donothing Congress,” because it is a single, small truth in a vast sea of blather and deceit.
Mr. Biden is actually likable and commanding when his aides let him loose and he allows his inner Harry Truman to come out.
What made Tom Brady not just great but the greatest? Passion, sincerity, class and discipline. He was a leader.
Do you see any of those qualities in most of our elites?
Our political class is dominated by pretenders: Can I out-Trump my primary opponent? Can I pander enough to the anointed?
Watch the Judiciary Committee hearings on Biden’s nominee when they come. And get ready to retch. Just as the play-acting for the Trump nominees oozed with bad faith.
You might say we deserve better than Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham. Or the talking heads on Fox or CNN. But our lousy elites are ultimately on us. “Nobody ever blames the people,” a friend of mine on the Hill used to say.
We elected Marjorie Taylor Greene and Joe Wilson and Maxine Waters. It’s up to us to draft a better class of leaders.