David Brooks, "The Question-Driven Life": Advice to Politicians?

I woke up this morning still in pain from the prior day's events: a horrifying attack by terrorists from Gaza against Israeli civilians, the embarrassingly belated call from Obama for Syria's Assad to step down, and the continued collapse of world financial markets brought on by economic stagnation. David Brooks's New York Times op-ed entitled "The Question-Driven Life" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/brooks-the-question-driven-life.html?ref=opinion), describing Philip Leakey's unconventional mountaintop lifestyle in Kenya, provided a momentary reprieve from my sorrow.

Brooks concludes his essay with advice offered by Richard Holbrooke:

"The late Richard Holbrooke used to give the essential piece of advice for a question-driven life: Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around."

What a pity that the current occupant of the White House and those who would supplant him cannot live by this code.