Speaker Johnson—Statecraft Not Grandstanding…. Honey Still Works Better Than Vinegar

STATECRAFT- The skills of being a Statesman, of leading a country well

Ethical, Effective Leadership may very well the most endangered species in America Today

The ragtag group of hacks poising as our current examples of American Exceptionalism Leadership – Championing our Superpower Culture would be dismissed forty years ago.

Yes….politicians have always like to Grandstand but what is absent today is any semblance of Decency.

Decency-  Conformity to prevailing standards of propriety or modesty.

If you’re younger than fifty you may ask

What’s that ??

Let me help you by telling you what it is not

Example #1

Speaker Johnson visit yesterday to Columbia University was a great example of what NOT to do…

Speaker Johnson having crammed through a most unpopular Foreign Aid Package to his Red Team Caucus this weekend needed to pander to the Hard MAGA Right

Hmmm..what to do?

Mollify Rep Stefanik who was Grandstanding in her VP Audition during the Testimony of Columbia U. Prez Shafik

Shafik was most cooperative…stating her willingness to follow a high professional bar and noting the complex challenges of operating a Global Institution of 30,000 Students and 10,000 Employees that come from every corner of the planet.

Unlike Harvard’s Prez. Gay …she did not invoke the WOKE Gospel but was immediately asked to resign because this has become some success recipe especially on the Hard Right of bringing down these successful women while ignoring the Donor Class of men funding all the current chaos.

Speaker Johnson used one of his up-and-coming surrogates Rep Milliokatis to visit Columbia mounting the stairs in front of Pulitzer Hall for a Grand Mal Performance

 – a Media Moment

– pure self-interest

– fain in outrage for his red meat partisan to observe

--- Mike despite the Ukraine Bill—still drinks the Kool Aid  

…..he offered up Prez. Shafik as the sacrificing offering

Yet could not provide any rationalization of who or what was going to do a better job in attempting to bring order back to this campus that is beset by an organized national attempt to endanger the public in the name of Gaza

….a topic that most of these young minds filled with mush have not the slightest idea they are protesting about

With lots of vinegar—fire and brimstone…

Mike wagged his head – spoke sanctimonious

– Did what the Right does so well—

..wrapped themselves in Self-Righteous Indignation

Speaker Johnson in our case study here is Numero Uno Example of what ethical effective leadership--- Statecraft- Decency is not about

What makes this even more grotesque --- incongruous to any level of sincerity

Mike stayed in NYC – So he could have a live face to face moment with Jesse Water’s on his Evening Program

While Jesse softball underhand tossed him a few questions

It was pure propaganda – the type of stuff you see in the media in all these totalitarian countries that people like Johnson would be the first to criticize

Example # 2

Speaker Johnson accompanied by a bipartisan delegation of U.S. House members come a meeting with President Shafik and her team.

TOGETHER stand on the stairs of Pulitzer Hall in the midst of the protesters and mutually supporting each other along with their mutual goals of Individual Rights-Freedom, Free Speech but also No-Nonsense Enforcement of Public Safety

This is how our elected officials dealt with things in the past as they possessed a different sense of responsibility and collective selfhood---

..to them We are all Americans-

This is Statecraft 101 ….

You may say that this is something from former times and I will tell you that you’re wrong

It still works and currently in New Hampshire in the last six months on some specific legislation we have brought together a growing unity of diverse constituencies that has pushed these bills through the NH General Court and with each passing day see more light at the end of the tunnel in the State Senate

Honey ..the sweetness of reason still finds lots of receptiveness in the American Psyche

…which to most folks over forty and to a lesser degree with younger people --- the concept of being Fair and Reasonable – Decent and Honest is a clean smelling brand that I speak from experience possesses huge support.

Speaker Johnson standing next to President Shafik would be a Kodak Moment flashed around the Globe

…a statement of united purpose and intention

…the Peacemakers coming together to resolve the crisis

Alas ..this is not the popular culture that the elites favors as it does not serve their self-interested purposes.

Please read my previous article on Rome and The Crisis of the Third Century

In 238 AD – Six Roman Emperors in one year—crazy instability that began fifty years before with a singular action that weaken Roman Society

After the prosperity of two hundred years of the Pax Romana--- Emperor Commodus came to the throne and systematically destroyed the moderate core of Roman Leadership.

The ensuing Emperors killed off all the Peacemakers with the assistance of the Praetorian Establishment

What once was a tradition of civility, tolerance, debate and consensus was replaced with brutalism/ extremism.

With the passing of two generations society forgets old habits and assumes new behaviors.

It would take another fifty years after 238 A.D. for society to right itself back to the high standards of the Pax Romana

…yet it never did recapture the total luster of its former greatness.

We observe the same trend today ….the leaders on both extremes battling to new levels of depravity

…desperate for power at any price

There are still two generations of America that remember our former greatness

For leaders like Speaker Johnson and on the other side Rep Omar they are the same form of cancer induced into the American Bloodstream as they Grandstand to whoever will listen

Yesterday was a lost opportunity not just for Speaker Johnson but for all of us collectively for there was a transformative moment right within our reach that could have made a powerful statement

Instead of Greatness ….

Mike chose Vain Glory ….

Not the level of leadership befitting the Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps

Speaker Johnson more than looking at the speck in his spiritual sister’s eye must reflect upon the log that clouds his vision

Yesterday was not just a lost opportunity for the Speaker but for every American that honestly believes in Liberty and Justice for all