Point of View
America lacks great leadership, direction in 21st century
By Carl Heintze
As we launch ourselves into another election year, I have the melancholy feeling that I've heard it all before.
Even some of the actors are the same. Steve Forbes, for instance, is again spending the money his father, Malcolm, made in an attempt to buy the presidency, so he can reduce his tax bill. George W. Bush (or as Molly Ivins calls him, "Shrub," who, if not the smiling image of his father, seems to be assembled out of many of the same parts and appears a partially successful clone of his old man. We have not been asked to "read my lips," but that may be coming soon.
Orrin Hatch has come back, too, apparently misdirected on his way toward Comedy Central. And John McCain has been charming reporters, if not voters. He's banking on the dubious chance he'll take the Carolinas, endorsing the flying of the Confederate flag, a hot item in those parts. There are a couple of lesser Republicans who haven't got a chance at the nomination, but don't seem to know it.
Mercifully missing from public attention is Pat Buchanan, who seems to have disappeared somewhere, perhaps into Ross Perot's office. All these familiar figures keep showing up in the same old places, New Hampshire and Iowa at "debates," which aren't really debates, but beauty contests of sorts or a little like police lineups ("Pick the successful candidate from this row of potentials.").
Over on the Democratic side, Bill Bradley wants to be Abraham Lincoln without a beard. It's hard to imagine Abe in a pair of basketball shorts, but Bill would like you to try. Al Gore is either reinventing himself or trying desperately to find out who he is. He seems to remain uncertain. He's a little like young George W., only he seems not to have the parts connected properly. The only bright prospect is that we don't have old Bill Clinton to kick around any more. Just his ghost, sort of. It seems to hover over Al Gore's head.
So far, surprisingly, sex has yet to rear its ugly head in this campaign, but don't give up. Politicians are as fatally flawed as Yer Average Voter (maybe more so--just look at Newt Gingrich). We can expect at least one sex scandal before November rolls around.
Of course, Hillary Clinton is still here, or rather, she's there, in New York, pretending that she likes the Yankees and Brooklyn minus the Dodgers and that she feels right at home in the Empire State. (Forget Little Rock, carry me back to the Potomac.) And she hasn't even announced officially that she's running against Rudolf Giuliani, who also has yet to officially announce he's running against her, even though he has had a lot of unpleasant things to say about her and art exhibits.
It seems to me like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra is reputed to have said. But besides being monotonously the same, it's discouraging, to say the least. I am only saved from blacker despair by looking back through history at those who have served previously as president. Not an illustrious lot, on the whole. For instance, the nation has survived such as Millard Fillmore, whose chief claim to fame was that he brought the first bathtub and cook stove into the White House, and Calvin Coolidge, who made it a practice, or maybe a virtue, to keep his mouth shut tightly during his term as president. Silent Cal's motto was let the good times roll. As, indeed, they did, during the 1920's.
So, if history teaches us anything, it is that one may long for a giant as president knowing, alas, that midgets abound. Great presidents seem to show up as rarely as Halley's comet. Yet one can hope. One can hope that one of them somehow will capture what the elder George Bush called "the vision thing." (He never did, but he had an inkling it existed.) Of the present crop of hopefuls, including his son, it is hard for me to find one who seems to have a world view or even an understanding of what the country needs.
Maybe the problem is that the country doesn't really need anything at the moment. Unemployment is at an all time low, the unparalleled stock market keeps roaring ahead, commerce seems not only our occupation, but our preoccupation. Although there are inequities, few Americans are starving. The Cold War has ended, and we remain, as we are constantly reminded, the only superpower.
But, it seems to me that, behind all the glitter, we also suffer from a lack of national direction. We are getting there, but we don't know where we are going. We seem to be reacting to history, rather than making it. But maybe history is only made during difficult times. Maybe what we need is a challenge, a new vision, a new national commitment. I would like to think so. I would like to believe that--given the best and the brightest, the isolation of two oceans and a booming economy--we might find something more challenging and wonderful to aim toward than a tax cut and the preservation of Social Security.
We've entered a new century, but we have yet to find its leaders, a theme or our place in it. Let's hope we do--and soon.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
