Anyone else notice the talk about focusing on "leadership"?

[AlienGirl]

I've been watching CNN's coverage of the RNC, and have heard a bunch of Repundits talking about how this election is all about the supposed "leadership" of Shrub.

This raises two questions:

1. Since when is * a "leader"?

2. Doesn't this seem awful cult-of-personality and slimy--suggesting that the scared public is looking for a strong father-figure "leader"?

Tucker

[blm]

1. Leadership is going after terrorism & its funding in 1988, like John Kerry

did when he investigated BCCI.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sir ...
September 2004
Follow the Money
How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.
By David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.
>>>>>
By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.
More than a decade later, Kerry is his party's nominee for president, and terrorist financing is anything but a back-burner issue. The Bush campaign has settled on a new strategy for attacking Kerry: Portray him as a do-nothing senator who's weak on fighting terrorism. "After 19 years in the Senate, he's had thousands of votes, but few signature achievements," President Bush charged recently at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh; spin that's been echoed by Bush's surrogates, conservative pundits, and mainstream reporters alike, and by a steady barrage of campaign ads suggesting that the one thing Kerry did do in Congress was prove he knew nothing about terrorism. Ridiculing the senator for not mentioning al Qaeda in his 1997 book on terrorism, one ad asks: "How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't know the enemy?"
>>>>>>>>>>
But legislation is only one facet of a senator's record. As the BCCI investigation shows, Kerry developed a very different record of accomplishment--one often as vital, if not more so, than passage of bills. Kerry's probe didn't create any popular new governmental programs, reform the tax code, or eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. Instead, he shrewdly used the Senate's oversight powers to address the threat of terrorism well before it was in vogue, and dismantled a key terrorist weapon. In the process, observers saw a senator with tremendous fortitude, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of his own career. Those qualities might be hard to communicate to voters via one-line sound bites, but they would surely aid Kerry as president in his attempts to battle the threat of terrorism.
>>>>>>>>>

[RobertSeattle]

2. My debunking of Shrub's "leadership"

Leadership doesn't prevent all the votes from being counted
Leadership doesn't sit for 7 minutes after being told the Country is under attack
Leadership doesn't use a national tragedy for political gain
Leadership doesn't reduce taxes on the wealthy in times of war
Leadership doesn't deceive a country into supporting a war against a country that isn't an imminent threat
Leadership doesn't ignore the advice of professionals.
Leadership doesn't take offense at being criticized
Leadership doesn't view things as all black and white, or good versus evil
Leadership doesn't depend exclusively on faith, but on facts and judgment as well.
Leadership doesn't minimally plan for winning the peace.
Leadership doesn't declare "Mission Accomplished" prematurely
Leadership doesn't allow a decorated veteran be smeared by others for political gain
Leadership doesn't distort the votes of another for political gain
Leadership doesn't stick stubbornly to one way of thinking when the facts have changed

[screembloodymurder]

9. Send this list to Kerry's media people!

This place, the DU, is a strategic weapon. Kerry's people need to recogize the creative thinking available here.

[Inland]

3. If Leader means someone willing to lie in order to get us to go along, sur

I would actually use the word "fraud". Leader is for those I follow knowing the facts.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Consider the fact that a "leader" is practically as undefinable

as describing the taste of vanilla. They have latched on to this one because it is intentionally vague but sounds positive, and connects really well somehow with chimp hugging the old fireman.

[rockymountaindem]

5. Took the words right out of my mouth.

It's so subjective that they fall back on it for obvious reasons. It reminds me of a quote from an old Dilbert comic, "Ambiguity succeeds where honesty dare not venture".

[tom_paine]

6. Sure, but like Hitler and Stalin before him, Bunypants* "leadership"

depends on nothing real, just many propagandized automatons and a multi-billion dollar (ruble, mark) propaganda machine & lie laundry.

So, they can keep talking about Hitler or Stalin or Bunnypants* wonderful leadership as long as the automatons and the propaganda are still around.

Which is why you don't hear much talk about Hitler's and Stalin's leadership anymore.

[laruemtt]

7. using their idiotic rationale,

they'd follow hitler as he was a leader, although to the nazis.

[AlienGirl]

8. Didn't "fuehrer" actually *mean* "leader"?