The Birth of a Moral Leader

I was sent this by one of my friends in ‘low places’ (thank you Rina) and thought it was a well written opinion on why President Barack Obama represents a different type of moral leadership.

EnlightenNext magazine has entered the blogosphere, enabling us to share our perspective, in real time, on current events. A great example is executive editor Carter Phipps’s post on President Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East and Europe. Reflecting on the gritty business of global politics, Phipps suggests that Obama represents a new kind of moral leader:

Many of the moral heroes of the twentieth century were primarily defined not by their heroic use of power and office but by their inspired opposition to the powers that be—from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela. Moral courage, in the last century, has often meant fighting against corrupt structures of power rather than embracing those same structures as a means to achieve positive change. Watching President Obama over the last week in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Buchenwald, and Normandy made me realize that we have crossed a threshold. Here is a progressive president who is directly engaged with some of the most delicate moral minefields of geopolitics. Yet, he is completely comfortable with power (but not enamored with it) and is turning morality and idealism into diplomatic tools of the best kind.

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