That’s how I’m feeling right now, tired. It may simply be that I didn’t get enough sleep last night. It may be this ever changing early spring weather. It could be the political landscape or things going on in friends’ lives. Perhaps it is all of these things, but they all boil down to me feeling really tired.

I was thinking of writing a blog post further exploring the idea of leading by example. Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about the First Selectwoman of Durham setting a good example in her use of social media and environmentally friendly clothes drying.

I thought a striking contrast would be to the bad example that Rep. Eric Cantor set when he talked about threats and violence against members of Congress for their support of the Health Care Reform legislation. He accused democrats of “dangerously fanning the flames” for speaking out against these threats and violence. It sounds an awful lot like the friend of a man arrested for domestic violence defending his friend by saying that if his friend’s wife hadn’t spoken up against previous domestic violence, his friend wouldn’t have hurt her so badly this time. It is tortured logic that defends perpetrators and Rep. Cantor should be ashamed of himself. His report of a bullet through a window of one of his campaign offices also fell flat as it turns out it randomly fired in near an area of Richmond that has had problems with gun violence. Cantor, speaking about other acts of violence suggested "It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain”. Yet it seems like this is exactly what he has been doing.

Meanwhile, I’ve been talking with my daughter about issues about bullying at her school. At a previous board of education meeting, Superintendent Stella spoke about the programs the school would be doing to make it safer for all students. The discussion went on to include comments about not only how bullies and victims should deal with bullying, but also what bystanders should do, and how to stop bullying from becoming a problem in a school. One of the things that I note is that students’ behaviors are often learned at home, and I wonder how many bullies have bullies for parents. How do we address bullying by adults? This takes me back to my thoughts about Rep. Cantor. He sounds an awful lot like one of those elementary school bystanders that knows bullying is wrong, but does nothing against it, perhaps even because of some sick sense of solidarity with bullies.

For a different aspect of leadership by example, Connecticut Gubernatorial Candidate Dan Malloy sent out a press release yesterday saying,

"I'm calling on the Governor to do today what I'd do if I were Governor. Call the legislative leaders into a negotiating session and allow members of the media (traditional and new media both) to sit in. I'd put my ideas on the table, and I'd ask each of them to do the same. I'd see how far apart we are and then I'd start trying to move us to consensus, and I'd do it in public.

He went on to say that some people might deem his call ‘grandstanding’, but he calls it leadership by example, and I tend to agree with him on this one. Everyone has been watching to see who will come up with what ideas to deal with the deficit. There have been battles about how the House and how the Senate will approach the issue and none of them have been any bit as transparent as we need.

So, we have some politicians that seem to think violent rhetoric is not really that bad. We have some politicians that are trying to solve a very big difficult problem without being very public about it. It all makes me very tired.