What Is Good Leadership?

The mad scramble of politicians all trying to cover their asses brings to my mind the question, what do we expect out of our representatives? Good leadership; which I define as "not only being able to manipulate people to do what you want them do do but also being ahead of the curve on important issues". By that I mean being able to anticipate problems before they become acute. Anyone with half a brain could see that gas prices would be going out of sight; what with all the chaos from our going into Iraq; that the Middle East is unstable and the threat of interruptions is likely to drive the price of oil up and up. And boy did our Administration get it wrong about Iraq--though a little instability in the region is good for the oil business--a win win situation for Exxon. And hey, what about oil conservation--now all of sudden car gas mileage is too high, too many gas guzzlers on the road. Everyone looks for a rationale to encourage their fads--the government doesn't see any danger regarding oil interruptions so why not buy $40,000 gas guzzling monsters? Don't require auto companies to design fuel efficient cars and fuel systems; the need for economy is decades away, right?
What about alternatives? Right now we could be using, without severe modifications, ethanol, biodiesel, and syngas. We would likely be saving ourselves billions of dollars in the process by not having to fight wars over oil, or guard it jealously. We would be saving ourselves billions of dollars in foreign debt and eliminating trade imbalances. It is about time we had good leadership and straight answers.