Authentic leadership in the USA? Obama shows the way!

By Guy Bloom on Aug 31, 08 10:07 AM in

First of all it's worth noting I am fundamentally not interested in politics, as I believe that the soul went out of the whole arena when Kennedy and Gandhi were shot. There's just something that has always struck me as un savoury about the type of person that wants power and dominion over others.

A friend of mine is a policeman and he has always said about validating gun licenses, "there should be an automatic criteria for denying someone a gun license....we don't give a gun to anyone that actually wants one. Instead we should give them only to people that have no interest in them".

I like this type of thinking and have always thought the same thing should apply to politics, the criteria for selection should be only choosing those that don't want the power, but do want the job! I digress....well actually not really. I have just never seen selflessness in the eyes of only but a handfull of politicians.

This brings me to Barack Obama, I have just been watching the speeches surrounding Obama's acceptance as the Democratic nominee in Denver and by heck what an impressive set of speeches they were: Ted Kennedy gave a spectacular speech which resonated back to days gone by, when the politicians had clout.

Bill Clinton was superb bringing the two competing teams of Hilary Clinton and Obama together (I have included the clip on the site as this is an exemplar speech: wit, intellect, force, it has everything), at the same time with the brilliance that is Clinton there is a certain 'loose cannon' element about him. Someone decided that just in case Bill Clinton went off message then there would be a five second delay on the broadcast similar to that used to screen callers on talk radio programs. The five-second delay, customarily used to censor callers who might use profanity or other unacceptable speech on a radio show, has never before been used in the broadcast of a speech by a former President of the United States. But convention planners, nervous that Mr. Clinton might depart from his prepared remarks in an unacceptable way, said that they were using the delay "just in case."

This is Part 1 of the superb Bill Clinton speech at Denver, 2008.

The vice president nominee Senator Joe Biden gave was exemplary in speaking from the heart and Obama himself 'I thought' topped it off with a 60 minute speech that I have now actually watched 3 times.

To watch the full videos visit youtube and type in:

Barack Obama Acceptance Speech
Joe Biden accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for VP
Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech - Part 1
Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech - Part 2
Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech - Part 3
Obama talks from the heart, he is authenitic. Being honest I'm not really in a situation to say whether his politics are sound, whether his budget adds up but you know, "that doesn't matter". When you decide to 'follow' a leader the majority of the time you never really know the facts as they get to see them and most of the time you're not as kowledgable as they are, nor do you have the resources to back you up like they do. So what are you really buying into? Simply, whether or not you actually trust the person, the human being, the fact that if it all goes horribly wrong, even if you don't really get it, you trust them to make a decision that you can and will believe in.

Watch the video. Do you trust the man even if you can't be sure about the facts? I do.