I-Ectomies

Peggy Noonan in a recent opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal Online reminisced about her days as a speechwriter in the George H. W. Bush Whitehouse. She described the President’s rule of “I-ectomies”. An I-ectomy purged all first person singular pronouns from his speeches so as not to draw attention to himself. The words coming from the President were not to be about “the Big I”. He was not to be the subject of his speeches. The focus was to be on the message, and credit should go to the people of the country and the small army of public servants who were attempting to do what was in the best interests of that country.

Mr. Bush was from a different generation and in many ways, sadly, from a different world. He was doing nothing more than living the values from an earlier era where it was considered bad form to talk about oneself, and where it was unheard of for a person of character to believe that the “Big I” is at the center of the universe. It serves our country well when leaders realize the wisdom of Jesus when he said, “The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.”

Israel’s first king began as a young, humble man of promise. He even tried to hide from the job. But after some time, Saul gathered to himself all the accoutrements of power,and lost the humility that began his reign. He went from hiding among the baggage (I Samuel 10:22) to building monuments to himself (I Samuel 15:12).

In fact his very patterns of speech betrayed him. In one of his run-ins with the prophet Samuel, he defended his presumptuous usurpation of power in a short speech that used first person singular pronouns seven times in a scant two verses. Said Saul, "Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash, therefore I said, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the LORD.' So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering." (I Sam 13:11-12 NASB)

Clearly no Peggy Noonan served in King Saul’s court.

This was a continual pattern with the man, caring more for his own personal vendetta (I Samuel 14:24) than the welfare of his men who were sworn to defend their nation.

I take the lesson of Saul as a warning to anyone who is in any position of leadership or authority. Position and power easily corrupt. President Harry Truman had this take. “If a man can accept a situation in a place of power with the thought that it’s only temporary, he comes out all right. But when he thinks that he is the cause of that power, that can be his ruination.” (Quoted in Merle Miller’s Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman).

A little humility is a good thing in a ruler. A lot of humility is even better.