Republic to Empire

When President Teddy Roosevelt attended the funeral of a member of British royalty, he declined the offer of a gilded carriage for the funeral procession. Roosevelt told his British hosts that it would be inappropriate for the head of a republic. He would therefore walk.

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If you are young and don't like to read (I hope this hasn't become a redundancy), then you are probably unaware of the transition from a republic to an empire. One of the reasons I'm so contemptuous of modern politicians is that I don't compare them with each other; I compare them with the great men of the past. The last elected president who had genuinely great accomplishments on his résumé was Dwight Eisenhower.

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There is no such thing as a flawless politician. We should never expect perfection in anything involving human beings. But there very much is such a thing as character, and that's where we've gotten careless in our choice of leaders.

The foundations of character are honesty, courage and fidelity. An adulterer who is unfaithful to his wife is hardly likely to be faithful to his oath of office. John F. Kennedy was an adulterer and a playboy, but he was the first president to be marketed like a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste. It becomes more and more difficult these days to distinguish between accomplishment and image.

Read the rest.