As always, David Brooks had a great op/ed piece this week in the New York Times on the real difference between Obama and Clinton. It is worth reading not so much because it helps those of us still trying to make a decision, but because it is a great commentary on leadership in general.

Brooks's character-based argument centers on the fact that the presidency is about more than positions of issues and political experience. He writes:

Many of the best presidents in U.S. history had their character forged before they entered politics and carried to it a degree of self-possession and tranquillity that was impervious to the Sturm und Drang of White House life.

because, according to Brooks:

The presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.

While the presidency of the United States is clearly at the top of this pyramid, all sorts of leadership positions possess this same dynamic: they exert all sorts of pressures that exacerbate character flaws and biases in a way that almost nothing else does. In my limited experience, those that do best as leaders are not necessarily the people who look best on paper, nor even those with the fewest wounds, but those who, aware of their own weaknesses and biases, possess enough reserve of character— knowing who they really are— to avoid being overcome by the bacterium.

Thank you Mr. Brooks.