We have a failure to communicate - and to lead

A long time ago when I was working at the Miami Herald and someone had really screwed up, I was there and watched the president of the newspaper at the time, Phil deMontmollin, slowly take in the situation for what seemed like an eternity.

It looked like he was getting ready to explode. When he finally looked up, he quietly and without emotion said, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

No one said anything and that was all that he said before he turned and walked away. I remember that I was somehow involved in the issue at the time, and I will probably never forget the look on his face or the tone of his voice. You might say that it made an impression on me.

Something I read last week reminded me of that incident. And what I read made me think about President Obama's stimulus bill and the process we all just watched.

Votes in the House split 100 percent down party lines. Votes in the Senate split almost 100 percent down party lines. The vote to reconcile the House to the Senate bill split down party lines.

I don't know what to say. One side was in favor of a rescue and the other against one? Is now the time for the same old partisan politics?

This country - and the world for that matter - is in deep economic trouble right now, the worst trouble in almost a hundred years. And the "leadership" of this country, and I use the term loosely, votes down party lines on a bill that is supposed to prevent the worst case outcome. If that isn't important enough for the "leaders" on both sides to drop the partisanship, the gamesmanship, the posturing, and to for once, make the right decisions for the right reason, I don't know what is.

I keep asking myself if I am expecting too much from our congressional representatives and our senators. I want to think that neither side tried hard enough to find common ground.

I want to speculate that there was simply a lack of leadership - true leadership from both sides. Where are the real leaders? Who are they? Surely out of the whole lot there are one or two with enough backbone on both sides to lead this pack - this herd - in the direction of the greater good instead in the direction of lunacy. Surely.

Fareed Zakaria, in his recent book "The Post-American World," says, "The problem today is that the American political system seems to have lost its ability to create broad coalitions that solve complex issues."

He further goes on to say that our current political system "has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia - politics as theater - and very little substance, compromise, and action."

He characterizes our current state as "a "can-do" country that is now saddled with a "do-nothing" political process designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving."

And I think he has unfortunately hit the nail squarely on it's head.

How has it come to this, and what is it going to take to fix it? I used to think that we had entered the Information Age, where more people than ever before had more access to more information then any other time in the history of the world. And that this was a good thing.

I thought that with more complete information that we would make better decisions. But it doesn't seem to be working that way and, in fact, it seems that it is having the opposite effect. It feels like we have become so overwhelmed with information from so many venues that our capacity to make good decisions has been diminished.

President Obama has stated that the partisanship in our political process needs to end - that we need to focus on finding common ground with each other and on making collective and productive decisions.

My hope is that he stays this course until people start to believe that it is in fact possible and that it is also necessary and in our individual and collective best interest. It's an ambitions goal but a worthy one - and our future depends on it. But our time is not unlimited and I hope we wake up before it's too late.

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