Exhibiting Leadership

In the movie “Glory” the penultimate scene is of the African-American Battalion advancing on the Confederate fortress that was their downfall, marching along a beach into the teeth of a relentless gunfire of artillery and rifles, steadfast in the face of almost certain death. Their colonel marches
at the front of his troops, saber in hand, leading his men into battle.

Leadership, in those days, was a risky business; but one taken seriously.

Not so much any more. It seems leadership means asking people to give you lots of money so that you can give lots of speeches and make lots of promises that you won’t keep after you are elected. Most of the promises are for things that are beyond the scope of the office you are campaigning for, but today’s leadership says that you promise them anyway.

Leadership means promising what you will do if elected to a higher office while you are failing to fulfill the responsibilities of the office you currently hold; the office to which you already have been elected.

Chris Dodd is in Washington today, campaign put aside while he fights for the rights of the American people as he promised to do when elected to the Senate; fights to preserve the constitution.

Chris Dodd is in Washington today being a leader.

Other presidential candidates are saying they support his effort, but they are not actually supporting it. They are campaigning for their own ends, more interested in their own personal pursuit of power than in the preservation of the constitution of this great country that they want to lead. They have shown that they are full of high-sounding talk about supporting the people of this nation, but when it comes to crunch time they will place their own interests first. They are more concerned with gaining power than with exercising responsibility and serving constituents.

They are as sounding brass; filled with noise and fury, signifying nothing.