Leadership...

Imagine that you run a big news organization, one that's attacked constantly by the President of the United States and his political allies.  Suppose further that investigations have uncovered the fact that one member your organization was subjected to illegal surveillance.  What do you say to the people who work for you?

Roger Ailes runs Fox News, and James Rosen is a Fox News reporter who was subjected to just such an illegal surveillance.  Here's how he responded, in a written memo to all Fox employees:

Dear colleagues,

The recent news about the FBI’s seizure of the phone and email records of Fox News employees, including James Rosen, calls into question whether the federal government is meeting its constitutional obligation to preserve and protect a free press in the United States. We reject the government’s efforts to criminalize the pursuit of investigative journalism and falsely characterize a Fox News reporter to a Federal judge as a “co-conspirator” in a crime. I know how concerned you are because so many of you have asked me: why should the government make me afraid to use a work phone or email account to gather news or even call a friend or family member? Well, they shouldn’t have done it. The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.

I am proud of your tireless effort to report the news over the last 17 years. I stand with you, I support you and I thank you for your reporting with courageous optimism. Too many Americans fought and died to protect our unique American right of press freedom. We can’t and we won’t forget that. To be an American journalist is not only a great responsibility, but also a great honor. To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high crime. Even this memo of support will cause some to demonize us and try to find irrelevant things to cause us to waver. We will not waver.

As Fox News employees, we sometimes are forced to stand alone, but even then when we know we are reporting what is true and what is right, we stand proud and fearless. Thank you for your hard work and all your efforts.

Sincerely,

Roger Ailes

Awesome.

One of Reagan's Best...

Best speeches, that is.  Listen to this speech, and remember a time (not so very long ago) when we had leadership that actually led:



Sure would like to have someone like him at the helm. Sure don't see anyone like that running, dang it...

Do You Miss Him Yet?

George Bush had many faults, but this is a great illustration of an aspect of him that I greatly admire.  And I miss it, badly. One cannot doubt his sincerity and his caring.  One cannot imagine either in Obama.  Via my mom...

Leadership, the Graphic...

Leadership, AWOL...

The past week has been particularly eventful, with the seismic disaster in Japan and the Libyan struggle topping the long list.  Periods like this make all of us long to see strong and effective leadership from someone (or even some group).  Such leadership provides us all with reassurance that someone is looking out for us, but more importantly, actually affects the course of events.

For Americans, most of all we hope to see that leadership in our President.  Our President has been completely AWOL (absent without leave), preferring to play golf and record basketball advice.  My own reaction to this is first shame and dismay, second to hope that the 2012 elections bring a change.  At this point, almost any conceivable change would be hopeful.  While many of the 2012 candidates on the Republican side are not particularly attractive to me, I can't think of one at the moment who would be worse than Obama.

For others, organizations like the EU or the UN are where one might look to for leadership.  The U.N. can't even bring itself to expel Libya from the Human Rights organization.  Worse, China and Russia both are blocking any possible effective action.  And have you seen the U.N. leading the way on helping Japan?  Of course not.  The U.S. Navy was there before Ban managed his first flaccid, platitude-filled speech on the subject.  A couple of European national leaders (from France and Italy) managed to sound aggressive on the subject of Libya, but they quickly shut up after the EU weighed in with “caution”, and of course they've done absolutely nothing concrete.  Meanwhile, Libyans fighting to get out from under Gadaffi are being slaughtered.  It's hard to say what the situation is from the news, but it looks to me like it's just a matter of days before Gadaffi has managed to suppress the revolution.  Somehow I don't think revolutionary supporters will find him to be merciful.

All in all, a bad week for demonstrated leadership.  As others has observed before me, there are periods in history where the world seems to slip into just this sort of rudderless mode.  Such periods are often followed by cataclysmic wars.  The runup to World War II was just such a period.  Let's hope that we can manage to get some effective leadership in place before that happens again.  The U.S., as the sole superpower, is the most likely place for such a leader to emerge.  Maybe we'll manage to elect one next year...

Telling Gordon Brown How the Cow Ate the Cabbage...

These wounded British soldiers are very unhappy with Gordon Brown's leadership, and they're not afraid to let him know.  Well, Gordon, you really wouldn't expect these soldiers to be pushovers, would you?