
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
January 3, 2008
25 Teves, 5768
Searching for honorable ambition
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We've been to some small towns and heard us some big talk, and tonight in Iowa, we begin to get a little closer to the real thing. We've heard a lot about how personal ambition shapes character for better and worse. Are the candidates for president trying too hard? Have they been seeking power too long? Are they in the race for us, or for them?
Most of the analysis has been candidate-specific, without much talk about what it actually takes to be a great president, or even a good one. It's still hard to tell who will begin to separate from the pack tonight. That's often how it works in a democracy. We not only fail to foresee the winners, but have trouble discerning who's likeliest to rise to the occasion inside the confusing fog of troubling events. Most of us who cover the race evaluate and analyze what's both lofty and trite, but we shy from those old-fashioned standards by which we measure excellence.
Robert Faulkner, a professor of political science at Boston University, reminds us in his fortuitous new book that it's important to think hard above the fray, to consider what informed leadership in the past to inform what we expect of leaders in the future. In "The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics," he reaches back as far as Aristotle for the standards of leadership, to accurately measure who has the qualities of excellence.
"Magnanimity" and "greatness of soul" applaud ambition as the natural growth of virtue, compelling us to do good because doing good is the right thing to do. You can find these qualities in Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. We cherished it in Abraham Lincoln, who defined his own ambition with humility when he first ran for public office at the age of 23. "I can say for one that I have no other [ambition] so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem," he said. "How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to develop."
But develop it did. It was what Frederick Douglass, the one-time slave and eloquent abolitionist, saw in Lincoln when he met him for the first time in 1861: "He was the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color." That quality may be easier to find today, but it's difficult enough. The appeal of Barack Obama, it seems to me, is that he wants to see others and be perceived by others as no different from others, that the color of his skin is irrelevant. He's the first black politician to suggest this is possible. How far Obama can succeed is "yet to develop," but even in his inexperience he suggests he has that potential.
John McCain is another candidate who is truly esteemed by rendering himself worthy of it. That's evident in the fortitude and heroism he showed in a brutal Vietnamese prison camp and in his stake in ideas he believes to be right, even when such ideas cost him the support of his party. Joe Lieberman is another whose ambition encompasses magnanimity and explains why he supports John McCain for president although he's of another party.
Magnanimity for Aristotle required pride based on virtue, public and private, and it grew out of both personal and patriotic attitude, fusing the inside gentleman with the gentleman we see on the outside. "The person who seems to be great-souled is one who considers himself worthy of great things and is worthy of them," wrote Aristotle.
This is particularly difficult to identify in our celebrity culture. We not only expect our presidential candidates to campaign with showbiz celebrities, but to appear to be showbiz celebrities themselves. The Clintons are the model. Michelle Cottle observes in the New Republic that the Clintons "have passed some point where they're no longer just politicians. They're rock stars." That seems to be why the bad things they do don't stick. We expect trashy behavior from celebrities.
If magnanimity is difficult to elicit in the current political culture, it's nevertheless something we should seek in our candidates. True esteem in a leader should mean that he is worthy of such esteem. Nobody is entitled to a pass, in Iowa or elsewhere.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|