Properly Placed Pride

A few months ago, before Michelle Obama became First Lady, she got into trouble with some folks for saying that her husband’s candidacy for President represented the first time in her adult life that she had been proud of her country. So how did you feel before that, the critics asked.

Well, I’m proud to be an American, but it’s a little hard to be proud of some of our recent behavior. Let’s face it, folks – the current world economic crisis is basically our fault. Wasn’t it we who invented credit default swaps and sub-prime mortgages? Didn’t more than a few of us lie on those home loan apps? Didn’t our regulatory system fail miserably, with Bernard Madoff as the poster boy? Haven’t our auto companies been making vehicles with no future, and haven’t we been buying them? If you want to expand the view somewhat, don’t our baseball players take steroids and our Olympic gold medalists smoke pot? And single mothers have 14 children? And not long ago, wasn’t torturing prisoners of war OK?

But the good news is, we can still be a role-model for the rest of the world, as we admit our mistakes and work ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in. Those are hallmarks of being American. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.

And of course, there’s pilot Chesley Sullenberger and his crew. So we still have a few things left to be proud of.

There, now I’ve said it.

Clearing the Raised Bar

No, Michael, they won’t let you do it: puff away on a bong, like thousands of other people your age. You might squeak into a Cabinet post if you didn’t figure your taxes right – but only after a considerable dose of red-face time. But when you’re up on a pedestal, it comes with the territory.

How many of us lower lights would pass a drug test, or survive a tax audit? Relatively few, I expect. But some of the laws have become so complicated or even hypocritical that beating them is kind of a game. Pot is a no-no, but if someone took a picture of Michael sipping a vodka tonic, that wouldn’t be held against him – even though alcohol is many times worse than marijuana in terms of the number of lives lost. And with our tax laws as complicated as they are, does the average bear compute the consequences of everything that happens in life before filling out a return?

But those are the perks of being a lower light: You can get away with stuff, and no one is really going to care. It all may not seem fair, on the surface, but I submit that it is. Smoking pot may be a peccadillo down here below, but if you’re a star and you take big money from those who think it’s a big deal, you have to play by their rules. When it comes to Cabinet positions, the consequences of not doing so fall not only on the nominees, but also on those doing the nominating and the vetting.

The fact is, role-models are more of a necessity today than ever before. If you don’t think we value them – think about all the attention we’re giving pilot Chesley Sullenberger and his crew for their heroism after the Hudson River airline accident. Or just look again at the pictures of almost two million people who stood out for hours on a recent cold winter morning in Washington, D.C. to watch something extraordinary happen.

If you find yourself up on that pedestal, the world will give you a lot – but get used to the idea that the world expects a lot in return, too.

There, now I’ve said it.