The Price of Blind Loyalty

Why, oh why do we have to keep learning this lesson, over and over, every 2 or 3 generations?

Paul O'Neil's book, co-authored by Ron Suskind, was one of the first books I read about the Bush administration. One reason; O'Neil was a hero, of sorts, to my father, mainly because of the way he had taken a large, failing American company, Alcoa, and turned it around.

The other reason was the book's title: "The Price of Loyalty."

The demand for absolute loyalty by any leader should be a huge red flag for all of us. When he has enforcers around him, we should all be losing sleep.

I have read the words of well-known and respected journalists which define loyalty as a virtue. That is wrong. Loyalty is not a virtue. It is simply a character trait which, instead of being a good thing, can be twisted into something very sick and monstrous, in people who do not learn to have faith in themselves and their fellows.

We can only hope our nation survives this latest lesson in the dangers of loyalty, especially when it is blind.

All hail the king | Salon.com:

May 17, 2007 | Loyalty has always been the alpha and omega of George W. Bush's presidency. But all the forms of allegiance that have bound together his administration -- political, ideological and personal -- are being shredded, leaving only blind loyalty. Bush has surrounded himself with loyalists, who fervently pledged their fealty, enforced the loyalty of others and sought to make loyal converts. Now Bush's long downfall is descending into a series of revenge tragedies in which the characters are helpless against the furies of their misplaced loyalties and betrayals. The stage is being strewn with hacked corpses -- on Monday, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty; imminently, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz; tomorrow, whoever remains trapped on the ghost ship of state. As the individual tragedies unfold, Bush's royal robes unravel.