Media locuta, Roma finita

Once when a board on which I served was electing officers, those in the running for the position of chair were pretty intensely campaigning. Another board member told me that the one thing he did not want was the chairman to be anyone who wanted to be chairman. 

"Those are the ones who are all about ego, never about service," he explained.

It is probably an exaggeration, but one wonders.

In the political picture in America today, it often seems that those who are most interested in serving the people are the ones most reluctant to pursue higher office. They recognize that the system is so broken, that what energy that doesn't go into fundraising for re-election -- and there is damn little left over after that! -- goes into blocking any efforts to accomplish anything. And if there is a smidgen of energy remaining after preventing anything useful from getting done, that energy goes into destroying the personal lives of your opponents and the members of their families.

Don't read the history of Rome. It will only depress you.