Leadership and Lucidity

People hear what they're listening for.

"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -- Shakespeare, "Macbeth."

   The language of politics, like the language of diplomacy, is often uttered with the goal of sounding important and significant. When read carefully, however, a speech often amounts to much sound and fury but little value.
   Nevertheless, politicians and diplomats persist in their self-important tales, letting others attach strong meanings to the verbosities as long as the echoes resound well and help build their reputations as lucid leaders.
   When the echoes clash, however, and are out of tune with fact or reality, the concertmeister can claim he was misquoted, or misunderstood, that the "fake media" distorted his words and that what he really meant was ...
   In short, people hear what they're listening for, and this explains much of the continuing support for die-hard supporters of the current president no matter how much and how often his comments and claims are exposed as untrue or based on faulty assumptions or simple ignorance of history and reality.
   In a speech in Paris recently, the president praised France as  "America's first and oldest ally. A lot of people don't know that."
   Actually, a lot of people do know that, going back to their days in high school history class where they learned of the Marquis de Lafayette and his role as advisor to Gen. George Washington during the War for Independence, as well as French support for the movement.
   But perhaps the president was assuming that since he did not know this, many other people were also ignorant of this bit of history.
   Or as our resident cynic has said, if you sound like you know what you're talking about, people will assume you do.
   
   Good leadership requires not only confidence in your abilities, but a firm knowledge and understanding of issues and circumstances that affect the group you hope to lead, as well an ability to explain clearly the goals and methods you plan to employ in getting there.
   Otherwise, you are simply Blowing Smoke at those you hope to lead. This may work for a time, and many hard-core supporters may refuse to accept anything that contradicts what their Beloved Leader says, no matter any contrary evidence, including past remarks and comments directly opposite to what was most recently said.
   Or, as Chester A. Riley, lead character in the "Life of Riley" radio series, was wont to say, "My head's made up. You can't confuse me with the facts."
   It is the duty of a free press to provide the public with accurate information about what an elected leader says and does, and whether that conflicts with history and reality.
   But when a political leader cannot or will not provide clear and lucid explanations of his plans and policies, it is the responsibility of independent journalists to fill that gap between claims and truth.
   Leadership and lucidity often go together, and typically one reinforces the other. But without lucidity, leadership suffers. And when citizens finally realize their leader is not at all lucid -- to put it bluntly, he doesn't know what he's talking about -- the leader himself becomes history.