In the 1965 movie Genghis Khan, there is a scene where a messenger rushes into the Chinese imperial court with the news that a town called Ho-pei had been captured by some rebels. The town is too far from the capital for the emperor to know where it is, so a huge map is bought and spread out in front of him. Meanwhile, there is much panicked hubbub among the courtiers, so the emperor says, “The situation does cause concern, but there is no reason for alarm”.
My takeaway from this scene was that a leader must know exactly how much reaction any situation deserves, and when. The caveat here is that in politics, the reaction need not be intended to resolve the situation – and in fact, may have been designed to exacerbate it. Whichever the case, one would expect adequate coverage and analysis of their decisions and actions. At a more basic level, one would expect that there would be decisions and actions to cover and analyze. Sadly, in today’s Canada, neither is of these in evidence ...
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