Dr. President, & More

This is an unapologetically idealistic manifesto about what kind of leadership we should have, what kind of leadership we deserve to have

Utter nonsense. We deserve the government we choose - not one whit better or worse.

Part of the problem is that what you're calling 'leadership' is nothing more than abject following the whims of many. It's a fatal flaw of democratic states, but it's a flaw that you and people like you have embraced and renamed a strength without putting into place a compensatory mechanism.

While this discussion is going on, I am reading Jane Jacobs final book (2006) entitled Dark Age Ahead. I had known of Jacobs as an "urbanist", as one who opposed the tyranny of the automobile. It was with some surprise to see that the 4th chapter of this book was entitled Science Abandoned. She deals with science as a cultural institution from a continent that "admires science almost to the point of worship." It is from the end of that chapter that I take the following:

Modern life has raised the ante of knowledge required in everything from science to democratic participation. Failures were always stultifying, now they can be devastating.

If the rot of bad science continues to spread, to be tolerated, and even to be rewarded by corporations and centrally administered government grants, the heyday of scientific and technological achievement is inevitably drawing to its end in North America. Try to imagine how demoralizing that deterioration will be for a culture that almost worships science and the proudly connects its identity and prowess with scientific and technological superiority. How will such a culture and its people deal with becoming incompetent and backward in science adn science-based technology?

Indeed, a new president should embrace the language and values of science not out of idealism, but rather as the highest form of pragmatism.

Kennedy managed both, and we went to the Moon.

I think one of the candidates may bring back the sense of idealism that I saw drain away after the events of 11/22/63. (Perhaps my age at the time, 19, had something to do with my viewpoint.)

I'm watching Obama carefully to see if such idealism combined with pragmatism can still be elicited from this very cynical populace.

The difference may be that Kennedy followed an inspirational national hero, and the next president will follow a "decider" who is out of touch and apparently incapable of nuanced thinking. (I'd call him a national discgrace, but I'll leave the final verdict on that to history.)

For those interested, here's Barack Obama's environmental plans:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/8/11550/3692

Kennedy managed both, and we went to the Moon.

The Moon landings were a demonstration of our Cold War technological power. We did very little science over the course of the missions, and they were cancelled before major work was done.

If that's your example of the idealistic and pragmatic union of science and politics, we're in trouble.

Caledonian notes: "We did very little science over the course of the missions, and they were canceled before major work was done."

I agree that the major accomplishments were technological, but science was on the table for the canceled missions.

The last human flight to the Moon was in 1972, and that was the first that had a real geologist (Harrison Schmitt) on board. Kennedy's inspiration was vital to creating the national will for the missions, and the goal of landing people on the Moon and returning them safely carried the space program through the Johnson years, keeping the science and technology goals alive.

But inspiration was hard to come by during the Nixon years, and pragmatists, no longer inspired by the goals, cut the Apollo program short.

As I noted in my earlier comment, I still lament the loss of that sense of inspiration when JFK was killed. We need both inspiration and pragmatism together for flourishing scientific research. Pragmatism alone can be deadly.

Hillary Clinton doesn't inspire me. Her policies will make things much better for science, so I find her acceptable. But I am afraid Washington will continue to be engaged primarily in ideological battles with her in the White House.

Will Obama's inspirational qualities be coupled with the judgment and skills needed to lead us through the challenges? That's the question I will be asking myself as the primaries approach (not that my home state, PA, is likely to have any say in the process).

Fred -- I lament the fact that none of today's Democratic candidates would utter these words:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Neuro,

I actually could imagine the wonderfully articulate and charismatic Obama saying something like that. I haven't yet decided whether he has the other qualities of leadership that I am looking for (and probably can't describe except that I know it when I see it).

My greater concern is whether we as a nation have the ability to agree on what price needs to be paid and what burdens need to be borne. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Iraq War is that our decider-in-chief told us to go shopping instead of buying defense bonds while placing a higher priority on removing Saddam Hussein than on bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

His version of those words seems to be this:

Let every American know that we shall pay any price (except taxes), bear any burden (except the draft), meet any hardship (except giving up oversized vehicles), support any friend (if we have any left), oppose any foe (because war is good for an incumbent president), in order to assure the survival and the success of whatever liberties the unitary executive grants you.

Now I am sure others can be equally cynical from the opposite perspective, and I hope this thread does not follow that route. Rather, I hope it addresses this:

I am usually not cynical, but there are times when my natural optimism is stretched beyond its limit.

And at those times, I think we need a leader who can be pragmatic, politically skilled, and inspiring. Hillary Clinton has the first two traits, but how important is the third?

And now I need to stop reading this blog and get to work on a book.

Neuro,

Sadly liberty is a very undervalued commodity in todays political landscape. Republicans occasionaly pay it lip service when not trying to impose constraints on individual liberties that offend their religious "values" or inconvenience their corporate clients.

Dems are tripping over each other to promise greater and greater government imposed "solutions" to all our problems. With the possible exception of Dennis Kucinich, Hillary is perhaps the most ambitious of these would be socialist saviours despite her recent attempts to look like a centrist.

Thomas Jefferson's words, "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government" are not currently in fashion.