Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it.” Isn’t that true? Just look at the lies the so-called ‘conservatives’ including their name – they don’t want to conserve much except their own power and that of their pay masters, have been telling.
Now, Walter Rodgers, CNN correspondent and editorial writer for The Christian Science Monitor, sees the big lie that Obama can’t lead as crumbling. Some of the power behind this big lie is the same savage partisanship leveled against every President since Watergate. Some of it reflects prejudice and bigotry against Obama himself. But perhaps more significantly, it also reflects Americans outdated and wrongheaded notions of leadership.
“American culture,” Mr. Rodgers writes, “mistakenly prizes bravado and arrogance as sure signs of leadership. Public showmanship – like donning a flight suit in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner – is easy. Quiet, cool competence that gets results – like pulling together an international coalition to protect Libyan civilians in record time – is hard.” Obama’s so called, ‘sitting on the sidelines,’ during the current Middle East unrest isn’t abdication of leadership; its wisdom.
Rodgers said a center-right voter told him recently that, “The reason I voted for Obama is because he has no hatred in him.” In an era of similar divisive bitterness, Lincoln said, “With malice toward none, with charity toward all….” Lincoln was also reviled in his time. Isn’t it interesting how closely Obama’s philosophy of leadership approaches Lincoln’s?
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