The best leaders are well-rounded, able to draw on whatever skills suits the particular situation at hand. They are determined, insightful, shrewd, and, most important, able to command the attention of the people around them.

Leadership is not a voice crying in the wilderness, aloof and apart. It requires an ability to command as well as to inspire, to learn in the process of collaboration and to build a team with a common purpose that can take action and execute the change they envision.

This points to a central tension in our very idea and practice of democracy – it is not a simple appeal to the rule of the majority. It is also about respecting that the power of the people is limited by what’s fair to minorities, what’s reasonable, and by what’s legal and constitutional.

Forgiving is all forgetting is another thing.