Letters: Leaders should be humble
Today, America is a nation in deep debt. President Barack Obama alone has added $5 trillion to the nation’s debt since he became president. He still wants to spend more for his social agenda.
After all the spending by his administration, our economy remains sluggish with 8.2 percent unemployment. The high gas prices and food prices have made people’s lives much harder than before.
Now he is campaigning for a second term. Since there is very little to show for in the economy and Obamacare, his campaign strategy is mainly focusing on the slogan “bin Laden died and General Motors is alive.”
In his recent campaign ad, we saw him bring out a big gun, former President Bill Clinton, to do the propaganda for him.
As we know, Clinton is the best spin doctor in politics, and he could spin himself out of any trouble. So it is typical for him to brag about President Obama’s great leadership role in making such a tough and risky decision to kill Osama bin Laden a year ago.
It is OK to claim all the credit, but, unfortunately, he took a cheap shot at Mitt Romney who, he thinks, would not have the guts to make such a tough decision. This is uncalled-for and has backfired on them, defeating the purpose of the ad.
Just think how much nicer it would be if presidents Clinton and Obama had given some credit to the previous administration for setting up the plan to catch bin Laden, and some credit to the CIA and SEALs for carrying out the plan. The problem of these two presidents is they are too arrogant and have no humility. They don’t know the difference between self-respect and self-importance.
Remember, when people are humble and gracious, they earn more respect. Here are two good examples:
Sir Isaac Newton credited his success in discovering gravity to his standing on the shoulders of the giants.
The first Chinese cultural hero, Yu, who lived during the Hsia Dynasty, credited his success in the most-difficult mission of flood control of the Yellow River to his predecessors who died of humiliation for failing their mission.
When the king wanted to reward him for the great deeds, he respectfully declined, humbly saying that he only learned from his predecessors’ mistakes in building levee after levee that failed to contain the big body of flood water. So he took a different approach by deepening the waterways and channeling the huge river — and it worked.
For the sake of our country, we should be careful to elect good people who will put our nation’s interest above their party’s politics to divide the nation.
Chris Hsu
retired state employee
Baton Rou ge