No “Dear Leader” please

I never got Obamamania.

I never understood the hope invested in the man, the nearly messianic expectations. I have friends who got completely swept up, who are believers.

I saw the same thing with George W. Bush: people who should have known better believing utterly that this son of privilege was just like them — and a great leader to boot.

I know people — my dad for one — for whom Ronald Reagan is a hero. (I have to say I’ve never personally met anyone who hero-worships Bill Clinton. Good thing.)

There’s something distasteful to me about elevating politicians to heroic status. It’s anti-republican (that’s small “r,” for the record). In our system of government, we hire these people to do a job and we owe it to ourselves to view their performance with skepticism, to hold them accountable.

Too much faith — I would say much faith at all — in a leader is misplaced and unhealthy for the Republic. The cult of personality is better suited to monarchies and authoritarian regimes. Americans should never have a “Dear Leader.”

Maybe I’m just being a crank. But I don’t think politicians should be treated like rock stars. (I don’t think rock stars should be treated like rock stars, either, but that’s another story.) I get uneasy when I see giant crowds going nuts over Obama.

Didn’t like the George W. Bush action-figure landing on the aircraft carrier, either.

Obama seems like good guy — personable in interviews, lovely family. I like his “cool.” I think his rep as an orator is overblown, but he does communicate well (though not as well as The Great Communicator).

But we hired the man to do a tough job and all that matters is what he gets done.

I suppose it’s natural to project our hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, aspirations and demonic visions onto leaders. But the American form of government assumes that we can get past that kind of irrationalism and see with clear eyes.

If we’ve forgotten how, we need to relearn how to do that — now more than ever.

Jim Cornelius, Editor