I want a leader, not a buddy

This was written about a year and a half ago, but I still feel the same about the two major players, so I thought I would add it to the blog. I am pretty apolitical (i.e. cynical about everyone), so I don't think the political landscape will be a constant theme of mine.

Sarah Palin hit the road a couple of weeks ago to promote her memoir "Going Rogue," and about the same time, Newsweek ran a series of articles about her accompanied with a photo featuring the former PTA leader-turned-vice presidential candidate. The photo was of sexy Sarah in running shorts looking a bit like a Price Is Right spokesmodel.
The ethics of taking a cover shot from a completely different publication — Palin was photographed by Runner's World for a small feature — and using it to convey disdain in an audience's mind is despicable enough, even though it's not technically wrong to do.

No the problem is this: Newsweek spent eight pages inside attacking Palin's record and her inability to be a world leader. That's fair. In fact, that's actually commendable. How Palin is believed by many to be someone who could lead this country is beyond me. What Newsweek did was to mock her, and the publication's intention was clear, even if they denied that intention in the days that followed.
All of this brings me to the buried lead: We are a nation that is quickly turning from credentials to cool factor. Experience is giving way to street cred. And we are looking more and more like a reality show gone horribly wrong.
Take the last election. Of the four major players, which two had experience and gravitas and which two had hipness and electricity. Well, the two old white men, Republican presidential nominee John McCain and current Vice President Joe Biden, represent the old school. They've been there. They've done that. But they are yesterday's news.
President Barack Obama was so cool, you would have been surprised if he didn't wear sunglasses to press conferences. He had platitudes and a GQ smile. What he didn't have, and what he is proving now that he doesn't have is a sustained plan for stability. And Palin was the wild card. She was a moose hunting beauty queen who didn't really read much of anything, but it didn't matter because she could rattle off corny jokes and rally the base with proclamations against gay marriage and abortion — you know, stuff a president deals with on a day-to-day basis.
But Obama and Palin were all anyone talked about. It was the hybrid of electability and likeability, or what I like to call e-like-tability.
E-like-tability has always been around in one form or another, but now it has morphed into a blob-like creature that trumps anything relating to experience. The phrase," I just really like [insert nominee here]" has gotten sickening.
I don't care if I like my leaders. I'd actually prefer not to. That way, if they screwed up, at least I could say, "Well, I didn't like them anyway."
Obama has made every decision in the past year with an eye toward universal liking. He has overanalyzed every move and acted (or not acted) accordingly. Because of that, the world has looked at 2009 and asked the inevitable question, "What has he done?"

I don't care that he can play basketball. I don't care that he's a closet smoker that could be found shooting the breeze in the back alley. I don't care that he seems like one of us. I don't want one of us. I want someone who doesn't have anything else on their resume except, "Knows How To Lead Country."
Palin is even worse. She was chosen for McCain's running mate because of one simple reason: she was a woman who looked pretty good on camera. The disaster that ensued was laid at her feet, and it's because she was and is unqualified to be a leader on the grand stage.
But because of the e-like-tability meter, it is perceived that cranky ol' McCain was the one that slowed this GOP train down. Palin may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but McCain is just mean, and we don't want mean.
Maybe one day we will get past the focus groups and test audiences and learn to appreciate a presidential contender for what they can do rather than how broad their appeal is. Maybe one day the Bob Doles and Al Gores of the world can prove that they don't have to appear on Saturday Night Live or, worse, a Viagra commercial, to prove that they can connect. Maybe we will learn that they don't need to connect.
They just need to lead.