Here are two incidents with a common thread. The first came in a recent interview on the Charlie Rose television programme in the USA. Former Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration, Robert Gates, in mentioning the extreme strains of the President’s job, referred to a comment he made to Obama in one of their White House meetings dealing with a number of issues. He told Charlie Rose, “At one point, I said to him, with a smile, ‘Tell me again your reasons for wanting this job.’ It is such a burden.” That took place this week. The second took place some 25 years ago in the Cayman Islands where the country’s political leader, Jim Bodden, was said to have remarked, about the forthcoming election campaign, that his candidates were unbeatable. He said, “I could put up a broomstick in my district, and the people would vote for it.” In Obama’s decision to enter politics and in Jim Bodden’s declaration of power, the common thread is ego, and indeed ego, expressed in self-confidence, is the essential ingredient in a political aspirant in any country where citizens vote in free elections. To follow politics anywhere is to see this. The heavy responsibilities of the job, the wrenching demands of the campaign, including facing personal attacks, and the realization that every four years or so your career is again in question, means that one must come to that process with a solid ego; that’s part of the equation.
Another part, however, is that almost everyone who serves political office becomes noticeably changed by the experience and understandably so. After all, the persons who run our governments, at presidential and ministerial level, are among the most powerful people in these societies. They enjoy all the trappings of power, they are courted on every side, they come in for constant praise, and even idolatry. The press hangs on their every word; ministerial staffers bow down before them; prominent and wealthy individuals seek their company. They are basically an elite group, and it is almost inevitable that they will be
