Mood:
irritatedTopic: "Trees v. Forest"(9)
There is a small lake not far from the Shire. Old men bring tiny sailboats to the shore and launch them with the wind. One day, Frodo noticed that one old man had almost a dozen such craft stretching from one end of the lake to the other. So many in fact that any other old man attempting to catch the wind found himself run aground by this childlike Armada. Frodo could not help but notice the cackling laughter of those in control, and he thought of battles once fought to ensure that all would have access to the winds. The thought, it seems, is timely for all students of Middle Earth.
The President is a Man of Peace. His pathway is rarely free of obstacles, and the answers he seeks fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Instead of acting with superior force against peoples unknown, and suffering only the loss of innocents, he alternatively has sought to delay the conflict and give cooler heads an opportunity to prevail. His detractors are aghast that any leader would warn the opposition that the threat is real, and immediate. His thinking is motivated by the belief that the opposition will withdraw their weapons and military assets from the field as long as a perceived threat is at hand. For if the opposition should return their horrible armaments to visibility, then the President would have gained the swift hand of the swordsman, prepared to fight and to stand for what 180 nations once said was the law of all Middle Earth.
A great leader cannot share responsibility, for he accepts it all. He cannot intimately detail his tactical advantage over the opposition if he is to maintain the peace. He cannot be confronted by an opponent who feels unfettered, if he is to defend the helpless. A great leader, perhaps described by the Bard, suffers the "slings and arrows," celebrating only in the rare moment when the wind turns in his favor. A great leader can endure. In fact, he must.
