Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca, Catherine Whitney Read Free Book Online

won’t find an answer to most of the big problems and questions we face today. There’s nothing in it to tell us how to handle terrorism, or the energy crisis, or health care, or stem cell research, or the drug war. But through the Constitution, we intrinsically understand who we are. We say, “This is what we stand for.” Its meaning should be imprinted on every heart. It should come to mind every time we vote.
     
    PAUSE TO LISTEN…AND THINK
     
    During the coming year, you will be asked to form an opinion about who should be our next President. In the process, you’ll be bombarded by media coverage on a minute-to-minute basis. All that coverage will not necessarily produce much valuable information. The media likes the horse-race aspect of campaigns—who’s up, who’s down, who flubs, who cries. But I hope with the world aflame, you’ll bypass the silly season and take your obligation seriously.
    We have so much media these days, and it moves so fast, it’s easy to get left with impressions that aren’t accurate. You can miss the facts if you’re rapid-clicking your remote. I found this out the hard way a few years back when my name appeared in two stories that had nothing to do with me. I call it being screwed by juxtaposition.
    The first story involved Heidi Fleiss, the infamous Hollywood madam. I was passing by the TV one day, and it was turned on to an interview with Heidi. She was describing the thousand-dollar fee that she’d charged for an evening with one of her girls.
    The interviewer asked, “If a guy pays a thousand dollars for an evening, does he pick up the dinner tab, too?”
    Heidi said, “Well, that depends. Let’s say, for example, it was Lee Iacocca…”
    What ? I never heard the rest of the sentence because my phone started ringing off the hook. For weeks after, people would sidle up to me and whisper, “Hey, I hear you’re in Heidi’s black book.” My denials fell on deaf ears. Heidi Fleiss had said my name, and that was good enough for them.
    Then, a couple months later, it happened again. This was during the time when the FBI was trying to catch the Unabomber. You might remember that they had a sketch of a suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt, large sunglasses, and a mustache. One day, I was watching the news and an FBI specialist was demonstrating to a reporter how easy it is to change one’s identity. He took the Unabomber sketch and removed the hooded sweatshirt. Then he erased the mustache. And finally he took off the sunglasses.
    “Hey,” the TV reporter exclaimed, “that’s Lee Iacocca!”
    Once again, my phone started ringing off the hook. “Lee, someone said you were involved with the Unabomber…”
    I was glad about one thing—I wasn’t running for political office. I assure you, had I been a candidate, I would have spent 90 percent of my time either explaining what I was doing in Heidi Fleiss’s black book, or trying to prove I wasn’t the Unabomber.
    So I caution you to avoid jumping to conclusions or basing your vote on quick impressions. Chances are, they’ll be wrong.
     
    HOW TO PICK A LEADER
     
    The goal is to vote for a leader. How can you tell if a candidate is the kind of leader we need? Here’s a good place to start. Give him or her my Nine Cs test. That’ll tell you right away if the person should even be in the running.
    I’ve already started applying the Nine Cs to the current crop of potential candidates, and as I look at some of the early front-runners, I’ve started to form an opinion. Mind you, this is my opinion. You may see it differently. But the point is, you have to read, listen, and educate yourself. Think it through on your own. Do some digging.
    I’m not going to try to handicap the election. I’ve never been that good at the track. But I thought you might find it helpful to see how I’ve applied the Nine Cs to some of these folks.
    John McCain has shown COURAGE and CHARACTER in the worst CRISIS imaginable—being a prisoner of