Stanley Fish proffers a bit of sage advice, courtesy of Machiavelli and Hobbes, to US presidential candidates and the voters who will elect one of them: Craftiness -- the ability to adapt one's actions to best negotiate tumultuous real-world conditions whist giving the public appearance of consistency -- not personal integrity, better qualifies one to assume a leadership role. The so-called character test that the MSM applies to political candidates, who are ostensibly judged according to their personal integrity, won't necessarily yield the strongest leader. In fact, Fish argues, it may disqualify them from holding office:
Integrity — the quality of standing up for the same values in every situation no matter whom you’re speaking to — is probably not a qualification for navigating the treacherous and ever-shifting waters of domestic and international diplomacy. Morals strongly held may preclude the flexibility and compromise so essential to political negotiation. And if character were really everything, candidates would be judged by their relationships with family and friends (Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton might not fare too well if that were the measure) rather than by their ability first to recognize, and then to deal with, the many problems facing the nation.
Fish is correct to emphasize flexibility over fixity when it comes to the diplomatic skills required of an effective leader. He is right, too, to reject the appeals to "character," particularly when it's assessed by the politician's private relationships. Clinton's marital infidelities and Reagan's familial conflicts are, or should be, irrelevant to voters because they don't affect the American public one whit; what ultimately matters is the president's ability to shape public policy making.
(On this count I find both Clinton and Reagan lacking.)
Fish's lesson:
In short, craft before integrity, but have sufficient craft to produce integrity’s image.Okay, craftiness is crucial, yes, but I would add that an ideal political candidate, while being flexible in terms of negotiating diplomatic solutions, should maintain a fidelity to the cause that he or she represents. I'd like to see a candidate who would remain committed to combating material inequality and poverty, but would be crafty enough to weather the predictable neoliberal attacks on those who dare to suggest that the state, as a body constituted by and for the people, has a responsibility to provide for society's least fortunate.
The problem with Fish's Machiavellian model of leadership is that it perpetuates a debilitating ethos of selfish individualism in which politicians seek, above all else, to perpetuate their reign, rather than striving to build a better society. This selfish individualistic ethos, of course, is one of the motors of capitalism, which explains why none of the "serious" candidates (in the estimation of the MSM) dare to propose the economic reforms that would overturn the neoliberal policies that have concentrated wealth in the hands of a privileged few.
One final question: Is the current Administration craftier than their bumbling figurehead, who, of course, has always sold himself as a man of integrity, would lead us to believe? That is, what if their ultimate agenda was not the neoconservative dream of establishing US hegemony in the Middle East but rather to promote the personal interests of a select group of insiders who have benefited from the instability in Iraq and the Middle East, the rising oil prices, the weakened dollar, etc.?
Anarchism antifamily? The Target manager obviously doesn't know the Traverses. 
and would understand.) Even if I had "disposable" income, it would go first to books I want to read that aren't absolutely vital for my research. But when I finally land that tenure-track job I've promised to buy tickets to see Radiohead live. I take it on faith that neither securing a job nor securing Radiohead tix is a pipe dream, however horrendous the queue for both might be.
