Simply Smith

The Russian President appears politically to be on his last legs. The American President seems morally to be mortally wounded. We have the prospect of both Russia and the United States turning in on themselves: a Super Power and a former Super Power without leadership and without government. Boris Yeltsin looks more like a senile, shambling grandfather than the leader of a great nation. Bill Clinton has the appearance of a piece of fresh fruit, but is this fruit rotten to the core?

All this sounds like the preamble to a novel: a best-seller chronicling the events leading to Armageddon. While politicians fiddle the world burns. But this is not fiction, this is real life.

I have to ask myself, why do we hound our political leaders like this? They are only human and subject to the needs and temptations each of us at one time or other experiences, and when they succumb to these temptations we throw up our hands in horror. Should we? Are we expecting too much?

In the past our great leaders were never subject to such intense scrutiny. Lloyd George was not angelic, Winston Churchill had his little foibles and JFK had affairs by the cart-load, apparently.

The private lives of Prime Ministers and Presidents were just that: private. Which one of us could say that there are no skeletons in our cupboards? We must not condemn our leaders for being human. Jesus said: let he who is without blame throw the first stone.

I believe that there are others in this sad saga who have their own agendas, others who want to make capital out of one man's weakness.

According to opinion polls the American people are satisfied with the way in which their country is being led. They elected a leader not a saint. I can be just as disgusted as anyone with the revelations coming out of Washington this weekend.

But to castigate someone for being morally weak is simply to call him human. Remember, he (or she) who points the finger of shame has three more fingers pointing back.

All we see on the television and in magazines is the striving for perfection: the most beautiful, the cleverest, the fastest, the richest etc. The only problem with that goal is that perfection is never achievable.

In whatever sphere you might examine the players have never achieved their goal of perfection. All they can say is that they have tried their best but always their best is never good enough, either in their own estimation or in the estimation of others.

We should never be surprised when people fall short of perfection. Rather should we be surprised when humanity is not exhibited. Call me cynical but I'm suspicious when I'm presented with a whiter than white character, a holier than thou attitude or Mr Squeaky Clean.

None of us is proud of our faults (if that's what being human is) but we must accept them. We should see each other, as Oliver Cromwell is supposed to have said, warts and all.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.