Where are our leaders?
Seems to me we have no shortage of leaders in business and other professions in this country. But high public office seems to be the notable exception. In fact, I doubt that a bona fide leader from any non-political walk of life would seek such office today. Even if they felt a strong desire to serve the greater good. I’m talking about people like Mike Bloomberg or Jack Welch or Oprah Winfrey. The reason is that the cost is potentialy too high. Few (if any) persons who have been successful in business or elsewhere want to deal with the public scrutiny of all aspects of their lives, where even unsubstantiated rumors can bring down a candidacy, if not the individual’s whole reputation. I mean, really, what otherwise successful person in their right mind would subject themselves to that in order to serve in public office? We need to stop rewarding the media for dragging out and sensationalizing every sordid and mostly irrelevant detail about an otherwise qualified and respectable candidate. Instead, we need to demand that our media ensure an issues-based debate. Only then will truly qualified leaders seek public office for all the right reasons. I bet that none of our nation’s greatest past leaders, including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, would have survived today’s media scrutiny. It’s a circus. They simply wouldn’t have run or accepted office.
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As long as a media entity is profit-driven and in competition with other news entities for the same consumer segments, sensational (and stupid/irrelevant) reporting will continue.
Furthermore, public service jobs of the local and state (and a good portion of national) level are presumably less, at least in terms of monetary incentive, attractive than private sector jobs.
So even if news organizations put dignity and issues first, rather than 24/7 reporting on the latest blonde college girl to dissappear in Mexico, there’s the important barrier of inferior pay-scale to deal with. In total, this seems like too big of a zit to pop; forgive the metaphor!