Power

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, on Charlie Rose last week here.  A titanic interview.  One of the more rigorous examinations of world events I can remember anywhere in the popular media (if PBS counts as a popular medium).

Trying to work out, though, questions of why people like Power can't be, or for whatever reason aren't, political leaders (an Ambassador being, of course, an unelected official).  Is it because there's an appropriate distinction to be made between the overwhelming substantive and procedural facility that an Ambassador (or, say, a General) may possess, and the broader mandate for visionary leadership incumbent upon a President?  But what is incompatible between substantive mastery and visionary leadership?  Surely neither precludes the other.  Isn't it more likely that anyone with the kind of moral and intellectual force, purpose and clarity of a Samantha Power is unlikely to see the appalling demolition derby of American politics as a viable application of their ability? 

David Remnick wrote a piece in the New Yorker a while back asking why we're likely to be left, yet again, voting either for a Clinton or a Bush for president in 2016.  Obviously many of us share in that cri de coeur, and would, for example, find someone with gifts like Power's a thrilling figure on the world-historical stage.  But isn't the answer to the question quite simply that there's no new talent in American politics because real talent is running as fast and as far from politics as it can get?