Today’s news story about President Obama admitting that he “screwed up” over his handling of a controversy that led two politicians to decline posts in his administration, is – I think – a welcome breath of fresh air.
One of the things that politics has increasingly suffered from in recent years (and this is particularly true of US politics) is an ever-growing tendency by Joe public to view the top dogs as infallible. If they make any kind of mistake (even comparatively small and relatively honest ones), they get crucified by the press.
This tends to create an environment where politicians do one or more of the following, whenever they “screw up”:-
- Spin their way out of trouble with a bunch of weasel wording double-talk.
- Pass the buck to some hapless scapegoat down the chain of command.
- Blatantly lie their arses off.
All of these approaches have problems;
- They leave the politician more vulnerable to further attacks (witness the Bill Clinton / Lewinsky thing – what really got him was not the fact that he poked an intern, but the fact that he lied about it)
- They leave the electorate unsatisfied and further increase cynicism of politics by the general public.
- None of them addresses whatever the particular issue at hand is. This means there is no culpability and therefore no accountability. And if there’s no accountability, then no-one learns from their mistakes. And the same shit happens again!
Personally, I think the approach taken by Obama is the only sensible one; He has admitted that the buck stops with him (thus taking ultimate responsibility), he has apologised and has taken the necessary steps to try and avoid a repeat of this situation.
I don’t think you can say fairer than that.
Regardless of political ideology, leanings or preferences, most people – be they conservative or liberal, left-wing, centerist or right-wing – value two things above all in their leaders.
The first thing that the public really want from their leaders is for them to lead by example. Nothing turns the voting public against a politician quicker than listening to him or her publicly endorse or criticize one thing and then do exactly the opposite. That’s called hypocrisy and it pisses everyone off!
The second thing that that the public really want from their leaders is something that most politicians seem to have forgotten (or have been conned by their advisers and spin doctors into believing no longer exists); at the end of the day (especially in hard times) what the voting public really want from their elected leaders is a healthy measure of honesty.
And politicians mess with that at their peril.
We might not like it when the occasional honest politician lays the truth on us, but we still appreciate it. Truly effective politics is much more to do with what is right, rather than what is popular…and it looks like we finally have a president who understands this.
Perhaps if we start seeing genuine accountability and honest undertakings by our leaders to avoid the repeat of earlier mistakes, we will start cutting them a little slack (at least when the mistake is an honest one and the apology is genuine).
Maybe then we might start seeing them as a bit more human.
Apology accepted Mr President.
Now let’s get back to work!
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