What this crisis really is about

Amid America's energy mess, leadership is lacking

We are seeing now, with the extraordinary pain at the pump, the difference between a crisis and a problem.

A crisis is immediate and acute. But it may be only a symptom of a larger problem.

The price of gasoline has become a crisis, causing the cost of groceries and other staples to rise, and making some people choose between bread and petroleum. It's leading to layoffs and threatening small businesses.

Consider just a few Georgians' heartfelt concerns (on the opposite page) that were sent to Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Good, hard-working, and in many cases middle-income families are struggling to make ends meet.

But as bad as things are, underlying this current crisis is an even more insidious and chronic problem:

This country simply does not have effective leadership at this time.

Think about the profundity of that statement.

This is supposedly the only superpower left on Earth. We are considered the leaders of the free world. We think of ourselves as the greatest nation in history.

And yet, we cannot help but conclude that we have no effective leadership in Washington.

We have no financial plan. We have no coherent energy plan. Our border is unsecured. And Washington not only has us in debt up to our ears, but is essentially garnishing our unborn children's and grandchildren's wages to pay for our future retirements.

Just take the energy crisis.

This isn't about a lack of oil, or the access to it. This is a crisis of leadership.

Perhaps it came sooner than expected, but a well-fed and focused chimpanzee could have seen high energy costs coming. Oil, like everything else in this world, is a finite resource, and China and India are leading a crop of burgeoning industrial economies that are driving up the demand for fuel.

Why in the world didn't our leaders have a contingency plan?

The reason: They're terrible leaders, if they're leaders at all.

We blame both parties, and both Congress and the White House. We blame current and recent elected officials -- multiple presidents and congressional leaders.

This crisis of leadership is a long time in the making: The last president who truly challenged us to greater heights and selflessness was John F. Kennedy. Since his exhortation to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," we've elected leaders who only tell us what they can do for us.

While Kennedy sent us to the moon, our leaders today promise us the moon.

That works for awhile, as we satiate ourselves with largesse they share with us from our own treasury. But over time, you get the kind of leadership you deserve. And we've gotten it.

It's just now showing up at the pump. But the lack of leadership in Washington has been there for some time, as evidenced by the federal budget crisis now taking us by the throat.

What can be done?

The easy answer is to say elect better leaders. But there's apparently something in the water in Washington that is both corrosive and corruptive. Witness the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. An enthusiastic crop of new legislators invaded Washington to, as the cliche goes, "take back our country." But within several years, the Republican leadership was playing the same games as the previous regimes, and became more focused on retaining power than reforming government.

Thus, we've sadly concluded that we can no longer rely on the elective process to fix the broad and creeping problems in Washington.

It appears, rather, that constitutional amendments may be our only route toward salvation. At the very least, we need term limits to keep our leaders honest and selfless and forward thinking, and we need strict spending controls in the Constitution to stop them from spending more than we can send them.

In short, it's not enough to try to change our leaders; try to beat an incumbent and his war chest. Instead, the system needs changing.

It's not their country, it's ours. And we've let it get to this point.

Only we can change it.


From the Sunday, June 22, 2008 edition of the Augusta Chronicle