Opinion Page

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Excerpt reproduces passages from Lee Iacocca's Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Iacocca, Lee and Catherine Whitney. Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

New York: Scribner, 2007. ISBN 1-416-53247-1.

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.

Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to — as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them — or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points — not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President — the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.

Leadership is all about managing change — whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths — for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION — a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President — four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know — Mr. they'll welcome us as liberators no child left behind heck of a job Brownie mission accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world — and I like it here."

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day — and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq — a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen — and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises — the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Origins: The above-quoted editorial, offering a scathing condemnation of the Bush administration and condemning a lack of strong leadership in the U.S. government, hit our inbox mid-April 2007, attributed to 82-year-old businessman Lee Iacocca (best known for his tenure in the automotive business as the head of Ford and then Chrysler).

The attribution was correct, and the timing was no coincidence, as the text was an excerpt from the opening of Iacocca's just-released book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, written with Catherine Whitney and published by Scribner.

E-mailed versions of this excerpt were later altered through the insertion of two denigrative passages referencing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama that were not written by Lee Iacocca and were not part of the original work:

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/iacocca.asp

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06 Jun 07 County traffic mess and Crane Island destruction

I think we need to pin down some realities such as:

1 No more roads can be built due to geography, topography, and finances;

2 No roads can be widened without huge property acquisition costs and damage to trees and ambiance;

3 Road densities must be realistic relative to trip times, accident rates, road rage;

4 Parking must not consume undue time to find places;

5 Impact of dwelling construction on traffic must be measured island wide and all of it must take A1A into account, with no artificial 1.5 mile radius nonsense;

6 Hurricane evacuation times must not exceed 72 hours under any circumstances and should not exceed 48 hours;

7 Current hurricane evacuation times posted by the county are false due to developer influence and must be corrected publicly;

8 The intersection of A1A and the Parkway will become one of the most dangerous in NE Florida when the shopping center is built across from the Hess station because the traffic patterns will be conflicting and confusing;

9 The streets cannot be forced to take more traffic unless they are made one way end to end or traffic is required to drive close together at speeds less than 15 mph;

10 The addition of traffic stop signs and traffic lights will cause people to race from light to light and sign to sign causing the accident rates to skyrocket;

11 As traffic densities increase and delays grow, road rage will grow exponentially and accidents and incidents will skyrocket;

12 The need for additional emergency vehicles will grow;

13 A1A cannot be widened because too many properties have been constructed too close to the road and acquisition of that land would break the bank;

14 A1A could be widened in some places by using the median strip and jersey barriers, which would be ugly as hell and ruin the appearance of the approaches to east Nassau County;

15 Widened roads will result in additional accidents from vehicles changing lanes suddenly to make right or left turns;

16 Tuscany traffic will cause a very dangerous situation on the west end of the bridge as people seek to go west from Tuscany;

17 A traffic light at Tuscany will cause problems with trucks stopping and starting, with many of them ignoring the traffic signals altogether;

18 Continued construction of townhouses and condos without more roads will cause traffic gridlock such that trips that now take 15 minutes will take 45 minutes or more, causing road rage and accidents;

19 The response times by emergency vehicles will become so long that loss of life and property damage will cause insurance problems, lawsuits, and voter rage;

20 Widening Buccaneer trail to connect Plantation South with Plantation North will cause destruction of a treasured canopy road just north of Fletcher/Gerbing roads;

21 Roundabouts for four lane roads will cause a huge increase in traffic accidents as people turn from the wrong lanes;

22 The construction of a marina on Crane Island at the end of a runway will create a potential fire hazard of monumental proportions since an aircraft crash into the marina would cause a fire that would take every fire truck for 50 miles around to put out, especially with townhouses built within just a few feet of the edge of the marina;

23 Crane Island holds the seeds of some very imaginative lawsuits against the city;

24 Crane Island impact on insurance rates could be catastrophic for the island;

25 The Plantation Corporation will certainly create the circumstances whereby the airport becomes thousands of dwelling units, including hotels, clubs, condos, and townhouses, and add perhaps hundreds of cars to the roads, causing the Plantation to demand the widening of the Parkway and Buccaneer Trail, with fatal results for the ambiance of both;

26 Impact fees charged to developers are a fraud because they are insufficient to contribute anything to road construction and thus allow the commissioners to go ape with the money for frivolous projects;

27 Nassau and Florida are broke, as is the Federal Government, so pipe dreams that the public will fund the ancillaries for developers must disappear;

28 When the roads fill up to sensible standards of density, all dwelling construction must stop, period, no matter the threat of lawsuits;

29 When the traffic limit is reached, the developers must get the word that no more dwelling construction will be permitted, period;

30 No more roads mean no more dwelling construction when the roads fill up;

31 Definitions of traffic densities must be publicly controlled and publicized so that the BOCCs cannot circumvent them with constantly changing definitions to suit developer demands.

I suspect east Nassau has about 10 years before it is sent to hell by the developers and the corrupt commissioners and their corrupt staffs.

So far it seems to me the people of Nassau don’t give a rat’s a-- about what is happening to their quality of life. So, they are going to

get it right in the a--.

Don Jones, Fernandina Beach

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12 May 07 Keep the Greenway green

Casting aside all the personal aspersions and innuendo that only served to take focus away from the real issues confronting the Egans Creek Greenway, I wanted to respond to Joe Palmer's piece that appeared in the May 4th News-Leader and correct some of the misinformation it contained.

Before the salt marsh restoration project between Atlantic and Jasmine, saltwater intrusion south of Atlantic was prevented by the use of back-flow prevention devices on the pipes under Atlantic. These devices allowed the fresh water flowing north through Egans Creek to empty out during outgoing tides, while blocking salt water from flowing under Atlantic Avenue during incoming tides. These devices performed quite well as evidenced by the forested wetland containing coastal hardwoods and oaks that flourished between Sadler and Atlantic for many, many years. Despite frequent questioning during the salt marsh planning process, the Florida Department of Transportation insisted that such devices were not necessary to be installed on the pipes under Jasmine. We all know now that the FDOT was wrong and. to their credit, they have agreed to right their wrong the best they can.

Saltwater is not "seeping" into the area south of Jasmine as Mr. Palmer leads you to believe. Go stand on either side of Jasmine by the north Greenway walkway entrance and you will see twin 3-foot diameter concrete pipes with thousands of gallons of salt water flowing unimpeded under Jasmine on every tidal cycle twice a day.

As far as the allegations of Concerned Friends of Fernandina and the Nassau County chapter of the Sierra Club "browbeating a timid FDOT,, speaking for Concerned Friends, I could only wish that we had that power and level of control. I can assure you that if we did, the original salt marsh restoration project would never have been expanded outside the 25 acres that was originally proposed. Talk to Mr. Spence and see if he shares Mr. Palmer's characterization of a timid FDOT as they have threatened to take his property through eminent domain if he didn't sign their agreement about fixing the erosion in his back yard.

There is no question that the Egans system has been significantly altered by man through the ongoing development of Amelia Island and within the City of Fernandina Beach. However, when the citizens of Fernandina Beach approved a $6 million bond referendum in 2001 (the majority of the funds designated for the purchase of lands for conservation that make up the Greenway), the community spoke with its wallet about the value and the need for the permanent protection of this land.

All the professionals retained by the FDOT, as well as Dr. Munsell McPhillips and Mr. Robert Prager, have said that the damaged area could be returned to its previous freshwater forested wetlands or it could be converted to a salt marsh. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Concerned Friends of Fernandina believes that the freshwater-based, forested wetland has more value to the community for a number of reasons, but primarily due to its scarcity on our island and within our city. Amelia Island has thousands of acres of salt marsh wetlands, but its forested wetlands is dwindling by bits and pieces every week and the 50-80 acres already affected is a huge loss that will take years to recover. We all know that value of trees with regard to air quality and erosion prevention and wildlife habitat, but did you know that the water absorbed and held in trees in a wetland area helps control flooding and elevated ground water levels much more than marsh grasses?

Mr. Kavanaugh has made his preference quite well known that the entire Egans Creek estuary be converted to a salt marsh. Fortunately, his view is in the isolated minority as evidenced by the comments at the March FDOT workshop to gauge community input where more than 80 citizens attended and not a single person spoke in favor of a salt marsh. Mr. Kavanaugh also made his views known at the April city commission meeting where he was the only person to speak in favor of a salt marsh. It was the city commission, not Concerned Friends or the Sierra Club, that passed Resolution 2007-66.1 that directed FDOT to immediately work to stop further damage as well as to develop a permanent plan to restore the area south of Jasmine to the forested wetland that existed prior to the salt marsh project. It was in response to this first directive that FDOT sought a permit from St. Johns River Water Management District to place a back-flow device on the Jasmine pipes to stop any further saltwater intrusion. It is a disappointment that rather than accept the fact that his position did not prevail and the city's leadership has given clear direction of its goal for the area, Mr. Kavanaugh acted within his lawful rights and filed an objection during the permit application process that will result in a minimum delay of two months before the FDOT can put the back-flow devices in place to stop any further damage. We are confident that SJRMWD will approve this permit at their June meeting.

The newly created Greenway Oversight Committee has an important and challenging task ahead as they work with the city, county, state and federal agencies in developing a comprehensive management plan for the Greenway. Just as the beach and river are jewels in our City's crown, the Greenway has been an overlooked unpolished gem waiting for the proper resources and management to restore its grand beauty. We applaud the City's leadership in taking these steps and hope that dedication will not waver.

Dave Lott lives adjacent to the Greenway and is on the steering committee for Concerned Friends of Fernandina as well as serving on the City's waterfront committee.

Concerned Friends of Fernandina

Concerned Friends of Fernandina is a grassroots citizens group formed to inform and involve residents wanting to

preserve the small town identity of Fernandina Beach and its natural beauty.

"With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." -- Abraham Lincoln

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Last updated: January 15, 2010.