Off With Their Heads! (Or at least on with their clothes!)

For decades now American society has rewarded and promoted leaders who model narcissism and callousness over those with vision and service. What we must change is our idea of what leadership looks like, not just the people who have risen to the top as a result. We have to turn away from brash, egotistical leaders epitomized by George W. Bush, and respond with distrust to impudent, arrogant leaders like Dick Cheney. We have allowed too many of this kind of leader to fill top positions throughout our society. We can't wait for leaders to whom we should never have given our trust in the first place, to get it, because they have never had that capacity. The remedy to our cancerous condition is to rout out our false leaders by calling their naked strutting what it is and to reward and promote instead leaders who demonstrate humility and dedication to service. The election of President Obama is just the first step in this direction.

I hope Arianna Huffington is right in comparing the present obtuseness to French leaders on the eve of revolution, because I hope Americans are ready to hold ALL of our leaders accountable. The "they" her post refers to definitely don't "get" their own rapacious indifference to the suffering of others. I'm hopeful that another thing they don't get is the awakening of American people to the timeless wisdom contained in the "Emperor's New Clothes." We have been frustratingly slow to grasp what some of Americans saw as dangerous and bad for our country 20 or more years ago. The best thing that could result from the unapologetic, naked strutting of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cronies, would be for the lunacy of rewarding such counterfeit leadership to be forever engraved in our hearts and minds.