Transformational Leadership or Constitutional Statesmanship? » Publications » Family Security Matters

Transformational Leadership or Constitutional Statesmanship? » Publications » Family Security Matters: "Lots of politicians make promises they can’t keep. Statesmen, by contrast, promise less and deliver more. Knowing their own limitations and those of the people they serve, they act according to principles, not just promises.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised the American people nothing less than a new nation. “. . . We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” he said just before he was elected president in November 2008.
Since his victory the president has made very clear his reverence for the idea of transformational leadership. He has identified “transformative moments” that must be seized, lauded “leaders who are able to bring about transformative change,” and heralded his administration’s steps towards “a transformation of how government
works.”

The president’s efforts to make his idea of “transformational leadership” real are everywhere. Whether in massive bailouts, sweeping health care reform legislation, an attempt to overhaul the student loan system, or a proposed revamping of financial regulations, the president has sought a transformation of huge swaths of American life with little regard to the constitutionality of these efforts."