I just yesterday came across an article that represents sweet vindication.  I’ve long felt that we’re saddled with a generation of “leaders” who are horrendously entitled and overconfident, who have no track record of actual accomplishment or success, yet who expect ever greater power and reward.  Where it comes to the products of our elite universities, William Deresiewicz would say I’m absolutely right in his 2008 article, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education.”  It’s interesting to read this and see the names he calls out as examples, because obviously his time frame misses the quintessential modern example of Barack Obama.  (As an aside, he calls out Scooter Libby, because apparently being framed by Colin Powell and Richard Armitage and convicted of having a less than 100% accurate memory helps make his point.)

What I find to be an even bigger miss — not Deresiewicz’s fault because he was solely focused on Ivy Leaguers — is how the same horrendous character flaws he calls out in products of the truly elite institutions are now all-too-common coming out of any bigger university.  Is this because of the march of the “liberals” through our institutions?  I’d bet yes.

Regardless, we need a complete purging in this nation, in both business and government, of our self-appointed masters who’ve signed up not to do the brutally hard work of leading our organizations to greater things, but who instead want merely the pay, perks, power and social status of “leadership” without any of the real burdens.