JFK

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
"Bob Noel" wrote:
But I would love to discuss this with someone who thinks
that honesty, integrity, and moral are not important
characteristics of the best leaders. I am very interested in
what characteristics they think make the best leaders (which,'
of course, also wouldn't have any bearing on what actually
does make the best leaders...now my head hurts.)

Mine too.
Especially since what you mean by "best" is so debateable. If you mean
"most able to sway the masses" then a great gift of gab makes a great
leader, e.g. Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan (no, I'm
not saying they are morally equivalent).



Churchill wasn't above a bit of whoring with his American friend
whose name I forget. His honesty was severely compromised by
having to conceal the success of the Bletchly codebreakers, leading
to many tens of thousands of deaths in the British cities which
went unprotected as a result. Such is the nature of politics.

But he _projected_ the aura of honesty and integrity in a way that
is quite remarkable. Who, friend of foe, could ever have been in
any doubt that he meant what he said in his "...fight them on the
beaches..." speech
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwt...l_audio.shtmll)?
And he wrote it himself.

Add to that good humor, intelligence, hard work to the point of
exhaustion and willingness to share the hardships of the people.
"Ask not what your country can do for you..." my arse. Its
strained grammar hurts my ears for a start, and its substance
an aftertaste of empty rhetoric.

Honesty and integrity that matter to a point, but it is the *perception*
that trumps the reality. Face it, Kennedy was lucky. If people
knew 40 years back that he was permanently on pain killers and
frequently incapacitated with his Addison's disease, perhaps this
strange personality cult would never have got started. The
thought of a strung-out junkie deciding the fate of the world from
the safety of his nuclear bunker makes me shiver. A true leader
would have excused himself -- heck, he wouldn't even have been
medically fit to fly my Cessna -- and we're just damn lucky that
today we're not all living in caves (the few of us that would have
been left).

--
Dr. Tony Cox
Citrus Controls Inc.
e-mail:
http://CitrusControls.com/