The Heroic view of Politicians

Richard Engel, writing an essay at MSNBC, starts off with this:

"A Iraqi friend recently asked, "Are the Americans so smart that they have a plan for Iraq that's so complicated that I don't understand it, or are they so stupid that they have no plan at all?" After a paragraph of explanation, the iraqi replied, "My Iraqi friend refused to believe it, insisting that the United States must have a secret, genius plan to serve its long-term interests in the Middle East. "If America weren't clever, how could it be a great power?" he asked rhetorically."

This is the heroic view of politicians. They are bigger, stronger, smarter, better looking, and in all other regards better than regular people. That is why they rule. The alternative, democratic theory of government, is that politicians govern because regular folks selected them. The two theories are not entirely mutually exclusive. There is plenty of evidence that its an electoral advantage to be better looking, taller, appear more fit, and there is substantial evidence that voters need to believe their elected leaders are healthy. This is the remaining heroicism of our electoral politics. TV appeals to the heroic, and so undermines the final squashing of heroic values in politics. In a democracy, there is no reason to assume that politicians are bigger, better, stronger, smarter, or like Achilles and Herakles, close to the gods than we common men. The fact that so many people actually continue to hope that our leaders will be heroes (supermen) may explain some of the hatred for Bush, who appears (other than his remarkable fitness) to be the very opposite of the heroic figure. If one's complaints about Bush focus on his inability to garner the popular vote, one is making a democratic argument. If one's complaints about Bush focus on his speech, his intelligence, his appearance, one is making a heroic argument.

I say all this about our own society, and we have had democracy in one form or another in America since Jamestown and Plymouth. Iraq has been under the rule or monarchs or dictators that explicitly made heroic claims to governance since the mudbricks were piled into cities at Ur and Uruk. I am not saying that bringing democracy is impossible in Iraq, I am just pointing out an obstacle that needs to be overcome.