CARLTON FLETCHER: Leadership vacuum persists … from Washington to Atlanta to Albany and beyond

Like Judas of old, You lie and deceive.

— Bob Dylan

While the overwhelming majority of us pretty much bury our heads in the sand or throw up our hands and say, “There’s nothing I can do about it!” we are definitely in the midst of a severe leadership vacuum.

And it’s rampant at every level.

On the national stage, we have a president who campaigned on “no more foreign wars” who can’t seem to put an end to a needless war in Iraq, although he’s proclaimed that the war has ended going on 20 times now, the same man who says he “loves inflation” and is happy with “$4 gas,” even after he told Americans it was on its way to $2 a gallon.

This man tells people who seem to hang on his every word, no matter how outrageous and how obviously false, that the economy is “the greatest in this country’s history” and other falsehoods, and for some reason his cult-like following and the sycophants in Congress who are afraid to stand up to him, no matter how outrageous his lies, because they’re worried about a voter backlash or, heaven forbid, a reprimand from their addled leader, keep feeding his massive ego.

We move on down to the state level, where majority Republicans are awaiting “a better time” to gerrymander their way to seemingly forever control in the state because a collection of nine Supremely Idiotic justices who, despite their call to be unbiased arbiters of the nation’s laws have decided to take away most of the freedoms gained through decades of sometimes bloody battles, have decided to allow states to do just that.

This same group in Atlanta has left millions in Georgia without insurance coverage, stubbornly refusing to increase Medicaid coverage because they have a disdain for what former Gov. Nathan Deal called “those people sitting on their porches waiting for government handouts,” a comment not used so much by today’s state leaders, but no less a guiding principle in their decision-making.

Then, there are the local elected officials … where to even start? One group has created an unshakeable collection of four who, in essence, control the millions of dollars that taxpayers, a large number of whom are growing tired of what can only be deemed graft or political payoff, continue to fund what many claim are diminishing services. And there are the projects funded out of those same taxpayers’ pockets: $200,000 virtual tours, free youth summer programs, millions of dollars in developer payoffs for projects that are abandoned with subcontractors left owing.

All of these examples point to a fact that many of us tend to dismiss: When we elect individuals based solely on party affiliation, church membership, skin color, empty campaign promises that are impossible to keep, or because some other highly placed politician told us to, we’re bringing the decline of government at all levels on ourselves.

Candidate A might be a really good guy who’s always been a good neighbor and a fellow member of the First Free Goodwill Church of the Pentecost, but what we’re failing to do is find out what Candidate A thinks about the issues that are important to us – or if he or she is even aware what those issues are.

Candidate B might have gotten the endorsement of the big man in the White House or the outgoing governor who’s strong-armed his own personal agenda with the backing of fellow politicians who have their own eyes on the big house or even the bishop of one of the local mega-churches, but that does not mean Candidate B has the knowledge to vote on how a multimillion-dollar budget should be spent.

We watch in shocked amazement as local politicians make idiotic statements, get into embarrassing arguments, try to justify blowing your hard-earned money on projects that benefit only themselves and their friends, and we ask, rhetorically, how anyone in a position of authority could be so blind as to how these issues impact others who are not the politicians’ close friends or aren’t in the same religious, ethnic or special interest group.

But the answer to that question is actually quite simple. We have a penchant for putting people without the qualifications, the knowledge or the work ethic to do what it takes to run a city or county with budgets in the hundreds of millions or dollars like a business. They  don’t see what the big deal is about giving a friend a wad of taxpayer money for something that is little more than a waste of that money because they don’t have the intelligence or the training to see a bigger picture that expands a bit farther than the front doors of their church or their next-door neighbor’s kitchen.

A growing number of angry local citizens are calling for state action to check the illegal spending frenzy that wastes taxpayer funds, and, sadly, the truth is that the elected officials who sit in judgment under the Gold Dome in Atlanta, most of whom are not really a whole lot more competent and able than the local politicos, aren’t going to encourage any of their colleagues from metro Atlanta to care more than a cupful what happens in the forgotten land south of Macon.

Two Georgias? Hah. There are three actually: Atlanta, Savannah and its massively growing automotive industry … and the rest of us.

Who’s to tell how good – or bad – a politician might be when he/she runs for office? Well, actually, you. Do a little research. Find out where these people stand. Ask them questions. And when they get in office, hold them to their campaign promises. Until we get more actively involved in the actions of people who are elected to represent us in the seats of power, we’ll continue to get the kind of false leadership that’s tearing us apart … from sea to shining sea.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].