Leadership
Impeachment Season
We started this year of impeachment with Governor Blago in Illinois. Then federal Judge Sam Kent in Houston went down. And now Gov. Mark Sanford of South Caroline — he of the Appalachian Trail euphemism — may be next up on the impeachment hit parade. My musings on this impeachment surfeit are at Huffington Post.
Read MoreMonster Mao
Mao: The Untold Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Holliday, has a spectacular first sentence: Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth-century leader. The book is wicked long (don’t…
Read MoreGovernor Scoundrels, Part II
One impeached-and-removed state governor stands out from the pack for sheer vitality and no-holds-barred assaults on his political adversaries. Governor John Walton of Oklahoma lasted only ten months in office in 1923, but they were action-packed. Sticking with the highlights: A “radical” Democrat with Socialist allies, Walton made his inauguration a people’s celerbration. More than…
Read MoreThe President Game
The historians participating in C-Span’s survey for ranking the presidents revealed one thing: even the pros are a little shaky about what to make of some of our nation’s leaders. Oh, the 64 historians who took part were pretty solid on the good presidents (Lincoln, Washington, the Roosevelt boys), and the rotten ones (Buchanan, Andrew…
Read MoreTom Peters & Me
A few months back, after giving a couple of dozen book talks on The Summer of 1787, I developed a new one on the “Leadership Lessons of the Constitutional Convention.” I figured a new take on the writing of the Constitution would keep my presentations fresh. I also thought business and government groups might appreciate…
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