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“A ‘Where’s Waldo’ Of GOP Leadership”: Sorting Through The Crowd, There’s No Clear Leader

This week’s Republican debate was like a “Where’s Waldo” of leadership. The subject matter discussed – national security and terrorism – is so complex, and so vast, it was tough to find the best leader on the crowded stage. And we want to find that leader. Very much. Because we’re worried and scared.

Part of the reason we feel insecure, let’s face it, is because we have no idea how to solve this problem of the murderous and determined Islamic State group. Common sense tells us that fighting on the ground in Syria and Iraq isn’t enough, or quite right, since there are Islamic State group enclaves in other countries as well as followers all over the globe. So even if we could dismantle or contain the so-called caliphate, we could still have more attacks like we had in San Bernardino and Paris. We understand that technology enables the Islamic State group’s hold to spread like a cancer, but we don’t know if there is a national security equivalent of chemotherapy.

That’s the backdrop of the “Where’s Waldo” leadership puzzle. And like a puzzle, this week’s debate contained multiple moments where we thought, “Oh, there it is!” For example, when Florida Sen. Marco Rubio explained the nuclear triad (“Yes,” we thought, “this is the type of thing I want my president to understand and be able to explain!”) or when Carly Fiorina showed us why the bureaucracy of government is “woefully inadequate” when it comes to assessing and addressing the terror threat. “Every parent in America is checking social media, and every employer is as well, but our government can’t do it?” she said. (“Yes,” we thought, “government has no common sense! We wish it did!”)

Less helpful were the nitty-gritty debates over the law. While certainly an important part of preventing terrorist attacks and bringing their perpetrators to justice, the laws governing everything from data collection to immigration must be part of an overall vision of how we deal with the Islamic State group and its followers. If we can’t see the vision, the details are just details. They obscure leadership.

When it comes to security, we ask a lot of our leaders. We need a lot. We want everything from tactics and strategy, to cues on how to think and feel about the threat, to reassurance that the bad guys are going to lose and the good guys will win.

President Ronald Reagan excelled at this during the Cold War. President George W. Bush was also very good at it in the months following 9/11. To find out who can reassure, and fight, and inspire in the age of the Islamic State group is our responsibility as voters. It will be the job of our nation in 2016 to sort through the crowd and find our Waldo – the woman or man who will someday add his or her voice and leadership to a proud presidential history that still echoes with moments like “Ich bin ein Berliner,” “tear down this wall” and “the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

By: Jean Card, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, December 17, 2015

December 19, 2015 - Posted by raemd95 | Fearmongering, GOP Leadership, GOP Presidential Candidates, ISIS | Caliphate, Carly Fiorina, Iraq, Marco Rubio, Metadata, National Security, Syria, Terrorism