Leadership = creativity + guts

Obama has barely enough guts to defend an idea with either a sizable constituency on the left, like major health care reform, or on the right, like escalation of the Afghanistan war. (Both of which, in my view, being bad moves). The truth is that neither the left nor the right have been creative enough to come up with credible solutions to our current crises and both major parties are mired in the status quo when it comes to anything offensive to elite corporatist interests. The leader we need is one whose analytical skills are not applied to finding excuses for failure but for finding ways to deal with the nation's problems which, although doubtlessly opposed by entrenched interests and ideologues on one side or other, are justified and justifiable to the general public. I believe such ideas exist but they need to be dragged out into the open from underneath the nay-saying scorn of self interested and dogmatic opposition.