IN APPRAISING Prince Mashele's vitriol against President Jacob Zuma ("Failing to lead by example", March 26) it is difficult not to shrug off the possibility of his being a disenchanted eminence gripe of a rival political party.

He has once again demonstrated his chronic obsession and usual shrillness towards the president.

That aside, having been exposed to his writings for a while one has observed that it usually takes only a slightly different remark or quotation as opening volley for Mashele to run exactly the same diatribe ad infinitum.

Mashele's fixation with Zuma can no longer be sustained by the flimsy pretext that as a number one citizen in charge of the nation's operations, Zuma should not be spared even ruthless and dissolute scrutiny!

The obsession with the president makes for a shallow and suspicious analysis.

Mashele cannot dictate to us how to analyse the president. There are many ways of doing so, but his method of analysis is narrow and fails to look at leadership broadly.

He puts forward a rhetorical question about children wanting to be like Zuma, and thinks that there is something wrong with it. There is nothing wrong with children aspiring to be like their president. The story of Zuma is one of the most compelling ones in our society, which many people admire and can relate to.

Many ordinary people still ask themselves how one with so few life opportunities could rise to the highest office in the land. They ask themselves how one who has faced so many challenges in life could rise and become a president?

Many people feel inspired by Zuma, informed by what former president Nelson Mandela once said: "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Zuma has taught many of us that despite the many challenges you face in life, it is possible to rise up again and triumph against all odds.

Through the life and leadership of Zuma our society also understands and appreciates better the fact that life is not linear, it is full of pitfalls and challenges.

His life also teaches us that leaders are neither angels nor flawless individuals. They are ordinary human beings who have weaknesses and strengths.

Zuma is not arrogant for a president. He has on occasions risen and faced his flaws and taken the nation in his confidence by apologising where he had erred. That is a mark of leadership, maturity and humility.

Zuma provides our society with a different type of leadership. Unlike the type Mashele advocates, the president is not an in-your-face type of a leader, whose every utterance indicates he knows everything.

Zuma is a patient and tolerant leader, who listens carefully to different views before taking a certain course of action.

Mashele should know that analysts are also subjects of analysis and scrutiny themselves, and unfortunately with them the benchmark is high as well.

Firstly, any helpful analysis in the public domain should be relevant to the exigencies of the day. The past should be employed in the service of the present if it helps the current situation.

On many occasions Mashele has been challenged to look at the various achievements the president has registered in many government programmes.

This would give the public fresh perspectives and insights about things they were not aware of regarding their own society.

A specialist function residing with analysts should, in short, tell us what we do not know, or unravel what is obscure for non-specialists and lay citizens.

Instead, Mashele recycles the same old diatribe again and again in the mainstream media, such that it is always easy to second-guess his subject.

It might well be proper to hoist him a little bit on his own petard, with his writing elsewhere that "there is a breed of so-called intellectuals who predominate our public space; these are the most disgusting of them all ... who at best peddle common sense ... who think that raising their voices means profundity of argument".

With writings like this recent article, how different is Mashele from this mould? Does his repetition of same personal issues make for a profound and erudite analysis? I doubt it.

Analysts reflect critically on fault-lines in the various aspects of society. They provide robust comparisons with other countries and societies that passed or are in similar historical epochs, to enlighten the present and future generations.

We are yet to see an informative and disinterested analysis coming from Mashele on various important and scholarly subjects.

We may as well ask whether, if we were to judge Mashele's self-acclaimed erudition and incandescence, should we judge it on his character assassination of the president?

In his article Mashele indicates that the ANC and the Presidency officials who "prefer not to look at the whole picture" will take exception to his piece.

Does he himself bother to look at the whole picture regarding the president's work?

He also says that officials (in the Presidency) will rise to the president's defence because they are paid for it. That is rich coming from someone who served the Presidency as a researcher-speechwriter in the communications unit that was serving former president Thabo Mbeki!

Does this mean he wrote simply because he was paid and did not believe in what he was doing?

We challenge Mashele to engage deeply on the policies of government and forget his inexplicable obsession with the president. In that way he may earn his mettle as an analyst.

l Moshoetsi is the chief director for communications research in the Presidency