Read an article on Lee Iacocca’s new book, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?“, which, alas, I can’t link to because Motor Trend is being rather weak at the moment. So, instead, I’ll send forth an excerpt I found using a quick Google search:

From Informationa Clearing House:

04/11/07 “ICH” — – -Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.” Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for.

I’ve had enough. How about you? I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, “Lee, you’re eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people.” I’d love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy. And don’t tell me it’s all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That’s an intellectually lazy argument, and it’s part of the reason we’re in this stew. We’re not just a nation of factions. We’re a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

Read the whole thing. Heck, read the book - I’m going to have to, I’m thinking.

I’m going to start by pointing out that I’m in favor of what we’re doing in Iraq, even if the execution is only finally starting to make some sense - Saddam Hussein needed to go. He didn’t represent his people - no, he gassed 1/3 of the people he ruled and condemned over half of the remainder in an environmental wasteland of his own making by damning off their water supply. I have no problems with us kicking him out. I also have no problems with us trying to take control of the situation. It would’ve been nice if our execution was a little cleaner - more boots on the ground would’ve been a good start, as well as a workable strategy. However, it seems that Petraus at least has a plan, which is more than can be said about anybody else that’s taken the helm there. This brings up a point, though:

The only place that people think there is leadership is the military. Even that, though, is going down. Take a look at those numbers - they’re all going down. Quoting from the article:

The drop in confidence in most institutions coincides with a period of time in which Americans have low levels of overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States, are giving Congress and President Bush low approval ratings, and are very negative about the direction of the economy. There is little doubt that this same “malaise” is reflected when respondents are asked to rate their confidence in the list of 16 societal institutions in Gallup’s annual update. Whether these low ratings are becoming a permanent fixture of the American psyche or represent a short-term bout of public depression remains to be seen.

The problem, in my humble opinion, is not the economy - yes, gas prices are going up, but we’re nowhere near in as bad of shape as we could be. I’m not rolling in the dough here, and the gas prices are hurting, but they’re not breaking me. I’m not the only one in that boat. What is breaking me, and is driving everyone I know insane, is that there is no plan - anywhere. We’re rudderless. We have a President that nobody likes and everybody refuses to listen to anymore. We have a Congress that is paralyzed with the twin duties of wasting time on a “comprehensive” immigration bill that nobody wants and with trying to stop a war by threatening to cut funding from the one institution that people actually like in this country, all while squeezing in a pay raise.

While talking with my girlfriend over the weekend about politics, she explained to me why she doesn’t vote - she rarely likes any of the candidates. From where she’s sitting, they’re all liars, they all talk out of the corner of their mouths, and no matter who you vote for, you end up getting the same results. I’m willing to bet my girlfriend isn’t the only one. Worse yet, I’m beginning to think that this is by design. Lower turnouts are predictable - you get the people that always vote with the names next to the “D” and the “R” in low turnout elections because they’re passionate for their “team”, whereas in larger elections you get a lot more independents, who tend to be much less predictable. When you’re talking about the sums of money that are invested in elections, you want predictability. If you’re asking donors to cough up millions of dollars, you want to make a business case that their investment will hold up, and the easiest way to do it is to say, “Well, there are more R’s than D’s in our district that are passionate about this hot-button issue that our candidate is solid on,” or the party inverse of that. You don’t want to say, “Well, our candidate is a very erudite, pithy candidate, who is capable of intelligently debating about a range of issues, and has a strong platform of new ideas that he/she wants to roll out.” Why not? Because that says, “In order for our candidate to get elected, we will need to educate voters on this candidates issues - all of them - as well as the benefits of each issue. We will also need to combat voter apathy because we’ve been feeding them swill for the past two generations.” Notice that, in the second example, you’re selling an entire platform - in the first example, you’re selling ONE ISSUE. Guess which is easier?

More on this later.