He's Constant As the Northern Star

As an English teacher, I often read Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar with my sophomore students. In Act III, sc. i of the play, the conspirators approached Caesar at the Capitol to ask that he rescind his decision to banish Publius Cimber. Caesar replied:

I could be well moved, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament...
Let me a little show it, even in this—
That I was constant Cimber should be banished,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

Whenever I have discussed this passage with students, they have inevitably steered the conversation toward the issue of leadership. In doing so, they have pointed to Caesar’s stubbornness as a flaw, one that they felt was dangerous, particularly in the character of a leader. Rather than adhering to a fixed set of beliefs, the students have felt that a good leader is one who remains flexible, particularly because unexpected events can necessitate changes in policy. Oh, that our nation’s leadership shared such wisdom.

According to an on-line article published by the MSNBC News Service, President Bush used the bulk of a news conference this morning to defend his nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Assuring pundits that Miers, unlike Justice David Souter (appointed by Bush’s father), would be true to her conservative views, Bush explained:

“I’ve known her long enough to know she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she will be the same person with the same judicial philosophy she has today.”

It certainly is comforting to know that, in a time of myriad problems, a rigid adherence to ideology, rather than a willingness to evolve in response to change, remains the gold standard toward which our leaders aim.