Leaders as Followers

* It is letters like Steven A. Silver’s (Dec. 28) that crystallize what is wrong with how much of the public has come to view our system.

Elected officials are voted into office for the purpose of representing their constituents in the most effective way they can. As professionals, it is part of their job to determine the effectiveness of proposed legislation and to look at the “big” picture in doing so.

Silver’s letter suggests that our elected officials should just be cattle (or sheep as Mario Cuomo asserts they have become) for the will of the people, no matter how impulsive or misguided that may be.

Cuomo was right: Politicians are now followers and no longer leaders. Maybe they have not made a good showing of themselves as leaders, but heaven help us if they continue to be followers. We need far more than that. There is a considerable difference between being guided by a constituency and a sheep-like “follower.” Let’s just hope that we don’t have to pay too heavy a price before our “leaders” once again become leaders.

KEN WEISS

Sherman Oaks