Ghosts in the Political System

The more time I spend thinking about the functions of ghost writing within politics, the angrier I feel. The purpose of the democratic process is to elect leaders who have the credentials necessary to be successful in representing a nation. Leaders should establish themselves os advocates of what is just within society, as well as catalysts for change in those areas where proper emphasis was previously lacking. Words are powerful tools and can easily become weapons. The ability of a leader to speak and think in a sharp and eloquent manner seems to be of the utmost importance, especially given the prominence of the shadow which the U.S. currently casts upon global politics. The words our leaders implement can have long lasting effects, which may be productive or detrimental depending on the speaker's skill. It is for this reason that I believe that leaders should be held to a certain standard of communicative skill. To simply rely on vague, background entities to put words into the mouths of a global superpower is ridiculous. I want to know that the words of the person I vote for are truly their own. If they do not have the skills required, they have no business in the political world. It seems there is an utter lack of accountability in our government today, and creating a responsibility gap between our leaders and the words that they put forth only serves to fuel this problem. To say that ghost writing allows for a "checks and balances" approach to speech production seems naive. Checks and balances are fairly thoroughly provided for in the constitutional outline of our government. If the president feels that he needs someone to proof read his speech, fine. However, there is an enormous difference between seeking constructive advice and contracting for outside construction. As for time constraints, If G. Dubs can afford to take the grossly extravagant amounts of vacation time that have been an indicative of his term, I think he has time to write his own speeches. And I am not in any way saying that I would want the fate of our nation placed solely upon the "original" words of Bush, but I am saying that we should have considered his shortcomings more thoroughly before placing him at the helm. We should not resign ourselves to accepting deception and unoriginality in our leaders simply because it has become the norm.