Several years back, a journalist named David Castro had this to say about whether moral failings should disqualify individuals from public service:
Moral failings by themselves do not render politicians unserviceable. It is possible for political leaders to be extremely effective and do good work, despite moral and ethical shortcomings. Such frailties do not necessarily impede the practice of politics. It is the public reaction to such failings that causes the problem in effectiveness. … It is more important for the people themselves to own their system and ask the flawed individuals within it to make progress than to continue a childish search for perfect role models who do not exist and never have.[1]
Amazingly, Castro cast the blame for the ineffectiveness of “morally-challenged” political leaders not on the damage caused by the leaders themselves, but on what Castro considered the “childish” response of the general public to those moral failures.
While I wholeheartedly disagree with Castro’s perspective, I think we need to admit that his view represents the new public consensus. In the eyes of many, it is no longer character that counts, but whether or not the leader can “get the job done.”
That perspective on leadership may
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