Thoughts, Musings, Reflections, and Ramblings of a campus minister, father, husband, and a Jesus-follower
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From Comics.com
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Former Republican Presidential candidate weighs in on the Jeremiah Wright “noncontroversy.”
As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had … more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
- Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Source: MSNBC)
(HT: Brian McLaren)
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This week’s leadership insight comes from our political landscape. Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been jabbing back and forth on the importance of leadership experience when it comes to assuming the role of President.
Clinton released an ad asking the question of who you trust to deal with the unexpected conflict at 3am. Obama, for his part, responded with a similar ad touting not his experience but his judgment in that particular situation.
So which is more important, experience or judgment?
I’m not going to publicize my thoughts of which candidate has the upper-hand in this post, but to say that both experience and judgment are important in leadership. Both are values that require some sort of nurturing to assure that the leader is leading well.
Experience is not necessarily something we can speed up. It is something that comes with time. But experience does not necessarily mean good leadership. Someone can have twenty or thirty years of leadership experience, but still not have the judgment or even the skills to lead. Experience can only be stewarded by regular times of learning and reflection that makes sure that we are learning from our experiences.
Judgment is an important value in leadership that does not necessarily depend on experience or age. We can practice poor judgment, regardless of the kinds of experiences we have had in our lives. However, it seems that judgment is often authenticated by experience. In other words, though judgment is not dependent on experience, it is often enhanced by our experience.
I recognize that as I continue to grow as a minister and leader, I need to steward both judgment and experience. I need to continue to learn from my strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures. I need to learn how to practice judgment and to learn how to make better and better judgment calls.
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, claims that if people are looking for both experience and judgment, then he is their man for the job. I suppose voters will decide whether his experience and judgment are right for this job.
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It seems like we love controversies and scandals even when the scandal itself is a non-issue. In the past week, there have been several scandals that have surfaced that are non-issues.
McCain’s inappropriate relationship. “The New York Times” has recently come out with an article alleging that John McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist. The allegation states that those close to McCain have tried to distance the two as it could have hurt his Presidential ambitions. All of the allegations are by un-named sources which weakens the allegations, and both conservatives and liberals have come to McCain’s defense.
Michelle Obama is finally proud to be an American. In introducing her husband at a rally, Michelle Obama said that this is the first time in her adult life where she is proud to be an American. The implication is that Obama is less than patriotic. Conservative pundits and Cindy McCain jumped on that by saying that they have always been proud to be American.
Is that true? Were conservatives proud to be American during the Clinton years? When Rush Limbaugh was counting down the days of the Clinton presidency calling it a presidency taken hostage, was that not an expression of dissatisfaction and perhaps even embarrassment? When Bill Clinton was caught having an extra-martial sexual relationship, were they proud to be an American?
Barack Obama plagiarizes his speeches. It’s fine for the Clinton campaign to suggest that Obama is all talk and no substance, but Obama is hardly plagiarizing speeches. Apparently his soundbites are similar to his friend Governor Deval Patrick. In fact, Patrick had apparently given many of those lines to Obama.
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With Mitt Romney dropping out of the race today, Senator John McCain has pretty much wrapped up the nomination of the Republican Party. This was no small feat for McCain who ran in a crowded field of candidates and six months ago commentators had called his campaign dead.
If/When McCain wins the party’s nomination, he will have to either battle the conservative base of the Republican party, woo them over to his camp, or abandon his positions for those of the conservatives. McCain has been working hard this past week to pitch himself as a true conservative, after being attacked by Rush Limbaugh on his conservative credentials.
Ann Coulter has gone a step further in her attack on McCain, calling him a “liberal” (which is no praise for conservatives), among other things. Coulter and others cannot stand McCain, citing his liberal credentials such as coming to the defense of John Kerry in 2004 against the mean-spirited attacks of the Swift Boat Veterans.
Even James Dobson has weighed in to declare that he would not cast a vote in this election if John McCain is the GOP nominee.
I have been a McCain fan since the 1990s. I may not agree with all of his politics but I appreciate his candor and integrity, which is saying much in our political culture. The GOP will go through a soul-searching with moderates and (extreme) conservatives vying for control of the party.
Though McCain may not hold to every traditional position of the party, but perhaps those positions (on the environment, taxes, immigration, and war) need to be moderated and open for debate.
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