The admirables from 2025, Chapter Two

Five more leaders in the columnist's pantheon to go with last week's five nominees.

In my column last week I discussed five of ten people I much admired in 2025: Liz Cheney, Art Cullen, Jose Andres, Audi Crooks, and Volodomyr Zelensky. Here are the other five (taking some license for a little variation in number):

ANTHONY FAUCI

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who turned 85 last week, was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly 40 years up until 2022, guiding the nation’s response to both the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 epidemic, as well as to SARS, swine flu, MERS, and ebola.

During both the AIDS and the COVID crises he was guided by the latest research, changing his recommendations as new data emerged. His willingness to alter his positions brought him criticism for “indecisiveness,” and he and his family lived with threats of personal harm, including death, after President Trump loosed a steady stream of opposition to his infectious disease leadership.

Dr. Fauci has also contributed immensely important immunological research and development for treatment of cancers and several other sometimes fatal diseases. For his leadership in the development of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in the early 2000s, President George W. Bush in 2008 awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. PEPFAR saved more than 20 million lives in the developing world.

Dr. Fauci served the nation’s public health for more than 50 years and has advised every President since Ronald Reagan. He’s received honorary degrees from many colleges and universities, and holds medals and other awards from nations around the world.

POPE LEO XIV

On a fourth ballot, in May 2025, the College of Cardinals elected a dark horse candidate, born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, to lead the world’s more than 1.4 billion Roman Catholics. The election initially raised suspicions among many of the faithful: they feared that a pope from a world power would merely parrot his government’s orientation.

They couldn’t have been more wrong. The new 70-year-old pope, whom former Pope Francis reportedly groomed quietly as his successor, was soon employing “soft power” as a spokesman for migrants, workers, climate change mitigation, and human rights.

Pope Leo has not initiated changes to traditional Catholic doctrine on issues like abortion, the death penalty, same-sex marriage, sexual alignment, euthanasia, or women as priests. He’s a gradualist, not a revolutionary. As an Augustinian, he places a high premium on obedience to spiritual teachings and teachers. Indeed, progressive Catholics may chafe at his reluctance to push for major doctrinal reorientations.

On the other hand, he emphasizes the openness of the church to those of all sexual orientations. He thinks that women as deacons is a subject worthy of policy consideration. And maybe most significant, he maintains that the right to religious freedom is “a cornerstone of any just society, for it safeguards the moral space in which conscience may be formed and exercised.”

As for modern world challenges, Pope Leo XIV speaks out strongly against aggressive wars, inhuman treatment of migrants, blind nationalism, and class and race barriers. He places a high premium on dialogue, cooperation, and mutual understanding. No wonder President Trump and his advisers regard with alarm his popularity and his outspoken solidarity with the oppressed.

WARREN BUFFETT AND BILL GATES

No billionaires rank higher on the visibility charts than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And none are more deserving of gratitude for what they do with their money.

Buffett is classified as the world’s 9th or 10th richest person, Gates the 12th to 16th. Those statistics make little difference to either man. Each would have ranked much higher and for much longer had he not been investing billions in worthwhile causes around the world.

I praised both men in a column several months ago and have no qualms about repeating myself here.

Nicknamed the “Oracle of Omaha” for his investing acuity through his Berkshire Hathaway company, Buffett has pledged to give away over 99 percent of his fortune through philanthropy. Most of that funnels through the Gates Foundation, with which Bill Gates (earlier in conjunction with his then-wife Melinda French Gates) provides massive funding worldwide, to promote health and education and to alleviate poverty.

Like Buffett, Gates has pledged to give away over 99 percent of his wealth. In 2010 Bill Gates and Buffett founded the Giving Pledge, through which other extremely wealthy individuals promise to give away at least half their fortunes to worthy causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills. To date, more than 250 donors from 30 countries have signed on, devoting many, many billions of dollars to help disadvantaged people around the world.

The United States government appropriates an average of about $70 billion a year for foreign aid, including military assistance. The Giving Pledge original potential totals about $600 billion. That’s an overall figure, not annualized. But it’s a mighty big chunk of change, even in comparison with U.S. yearly foreign assistance.

Gates and Buffett are the financial equivalent of George Washington, who as head of the U.S. military after winning the American Revolution, resigned his army position and returned to Mount Vernon as a private citizen. He later accepted the U.S. presidency, but as an elected leader, not as a military despot.

Washington placed others first, as Buffett and Gates do today.

UNNAMED FEDERAL OFFICIALS

I don’t know their names, or the positions they hold, or their genders, or how many of them there are, or anything else about them. Except that they deserve our thanks.

They are the government employees who stay on to try to protect the American people from the worst consequences of the Trump administration, rather than resigning in protest or fear. They had their counterparts in the first Trump administration. Through delays, tweaks, and outright shelving of dangerous, brutalizing, and whimsical government proposals, they protect the weakest and neediest among us from sinking further into poverty, illness, and other dire difficulties.

They also hope to forestall results of foreign adventurist initiatives from the administration’s most aggressive advisers.

And they provide crucial public leaks to the media as a part of their efforts.

We’ll never know how much damage they prevent. But I’m very glad they’re on the job, and that they’re able to operate under the administration’s radar.

SID JONES

For more than 40 years, Sid provided wise, compassionate leadership to the economic progress of the Greene County community and hundreds of its citizens individually. As president of Greene County Development Corporation for several terms, his vision steered the organization’s efforts in economic and community development, benefiting west central Iowa in both the short and long terms.

Sid helmed Home State Bank’s efforts for the community through both its financial and leadership contributions. His wisdom guided a great many of us, and he devoted many of his waking hours to personal efforts “on the ground” in development projects, as well as in policy creation.

I’m personally indebted to him for his ready ear and his thoughtful analysis during our discussions of the paths toward a vibrant future for Jefferson and Greene County. His death this year deprived us of his friendship and leadership and the warmth of his personality, but the community will benefit from his gifts for years to come.