Who wants a leader who is fair-minded? Is your lawyer fair-minded? Is your big brother fair-minded when you need help? Is your politician fair-minded? Do you want a fair-minded politician as your advocate? In an adversarial capitalistic society like the US do I lose if my advocate is fair-minded? What does fair-minded mean? Webster says fair-minded is marked by honesty—impartiality. Do I want my advocate to be impartial and honest? Will I not be a complete loser when I go into a contest to get my share; won’t I come out as a complete loser if ‘my main man’ is impartial? I think I need an advocate who is more partial than the next guy if I am to ‘get my share’; in fact I want the most unfair-minded SOB in the country to be my advocate! Some very important person, probably that baseball manager—I forget his name, said “impartial guys finish last”. I am inclined to think that evil equals fair-minded. Perhaps that is what Bush meant when he warned us against the ‘axis of evil’. Also Reagan probably meant that Russia was “A fair-minded empire”.
I want good leaders. A good leader is one of the most important things a nation can acquire. Look at how devistating a poor leader has been for the US for the last 6 years. We may never recover the loss.
But "good" to you might not be "good" for others. What do you or the others do or say when things don't go your way? Surely you don't think that everyone holds to the same values and ideals that you do! I would hasten to remind you that the voters of the USA elected, then re-elected President Bush. Yet you don't seem to agree. And don't you think that if your favorite candidate was elected those others might not like it? When's the last time you saw any large group of people in perfect agreement about anything? ..including what toppings to have on the pizzas? Baron Max
the only reason (we think) we need a leader at all is because everyone has a different idea of how things should be. an impartial leader with a population like this would have a very hard time choosing what to do, if anything at all.
As far as politicians are concerned I take fair-minded to mean 'not a pop-eyed, gibbering extremist'. They can be as wily and silver-tongued as they like as long as they're not advocating genocide. Of course, I'd hope that the silver-tongued ones have their words and actions weighed at the ballot box.
No at all. You'll note I didn't espouse an opinion of my own on the matter, I simply asked what makes you think he's been a poor leader.
Yeah, and I think it would be important for Coberst to explore why he thinks President Bush is a poor leader, even while others think he's a good leader. Perhaps that will help Coberst see that selecting a "good" leader is not all that damned simple for any group of people. Baron Max
I would say that Bush is a poor leader because his leadership has been very costly for the US. His foreign policy has been a disaster in that it has alienated the world against us, it has lost the confidence of the people in his ability and has thus set up our nation for a very dangerous next two years.
Bush can't stop bombing IRaq. He even admitted on 60 minutes that he thinks they'll get back at America if he doesn't change their government before they recover. But he's probably afraid because once they're enemies, he thinks they want to keep it that way. This I believe.
