Like a Mackerel in the Moonlight he...

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Applicable to politicians, chiefs, and other leaders on this side of the border as well!. Published in the New York Times

Opinion

COLLECTIONS>MOONLIGHT
The Paradox of Corrupt Yet Effective Leadership
By Alan Ehrenhalt
Published: September 30, 2002

Every so often in American politics, we come upon an ethical problem more delicate and more depressing than the existence of outright evil. It is the problem of mackerels in the moonlight.

John Randolph, the eccentric Virginia aristocrat, invented this phrase in the 1820's and used it against at least two of his Congressional colleagues. Henry Clay, he complained, was so brilliant, so capable and yet so corrupt that, ''like a rotten mackerel in the moonlight, he both shines and stinks.''

The phrase has lived on not only because of its cleverness, but because it defines a moral ambiguity most of us find very hard to understand. We look for heroes to represent us, although we rarely find them. We take a certain perverse pleasure in unmasking hypocrites and dispatching blowhards who fail to deliver on their promises. The leaders we have trouble dealing with are those of obvious talent and genuine achievement who turn out to have displayed appalling ethical insensitivity -- or worse.