02/22/2008
The Most Significant Surge in America is Hope
This election is boiling down to the choice between the overdue taking of leadership by the dominant generations
versus denial; the inability to recognize the oncoming headlong rejection of the old ways of doing business.
Hillary's fading candidacy reminds me of one of the last scenes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
in which Indy - hanging over a ledge above a chasm - finds himself barely inches from the Holy Grail.
Indy just can't quite grasp it.
Finally a voice of reason is heard from his father, played by Sean.
"Indiana .... let it go."
"But I just need to -"
"Let it go, Indiana."
In view of what has happened in an America suffering from the presidential incapacity - accurately described
by Mr. Maher last Friday night - of America's first retarded president, it might have been better had we passed
the baton back in 2000.
Speaking in fantasy, it also appears that had McCain somehow managed to avoid or overcome the total dishonesty
of the Bush campaign and managed to wrest the nomination in 2000, what would the result have been?
Ignoring the reality that Gore actually won that race, we can conclude that Mccain's apparent conscious-less
pandering in this campaign suggests how a McCain presidential campaign in 2000 would have required the same pandering to the
only political coalition that made the 2000 election close.
McCain would have needed the same kind of sleazy help actually provided to Bush in the 2000 election.
This political sleaziness constitutes the "same old same old" that politicians of my generation have
been enmeshed in for years. Only the most naive of my generation would insist that the government previously dominated by
Democrats was entirely ethically clean and free from corruption at the highest levels.
Republicans?
Having achieved majority status in Congress and with a haste borne of poor assumptions, elected Republicans
rushed to the pork troughs and the lobbyist all-you-can-take buffet.
They commenced their own version of "back-room deal making" with an abandon that reveals the immaturity of
their civic perceptions.
They behaved like junior high students acting out their own limited perceptions of how the government of Democrats
must have included widespread corruption, graft and opportunity. These apparently were perceived then as entitlements/spoils
of Republican victories.
It also reveals the shallow understanding of the consequences of dishonest Rovian-style Limbaugh-publicized
political discourse based on lies, distortions and hate.
The truth is that even in their most shameful moments of public stewardship, the Democratic Party - over all
those pre-1990's years of majority status - suffered much fewer embarrassments of civic failure and criminal conduct than
Republicans have managed to accomplish in their few years of recent Republican control.
These national Republicans were sustained and elected by their respective state party organizations, organizations
trained, coached and controlled by national RNC schemers.
Many of the newly elected arrived in D.C. either riding the coattails of the Bush victory based on deception
and dirty tricks, or heavily subsidized by the likes of Tom Delay-types (who then installed the lock-step device in their
brains.)
That's the legacy of Republican experience.
It is this "same old same old" working environment from which and in which Hillary and McCain have
their context.
This is the ultimate weakness of Hillary's tactic of trumpeting her experience. It is perhaps an unconscious
admission on her part that business-as-usual is the only method of governing Hillary knows.
The same is true for McCain, but it involves a more gruesome and shameful truth with the Republican Party,
It's the Fear-Mongering, Stupid
McCain now has those discredited Republican minions and Bushco's economic management to thank for having to
limit himself to a Johnny One-Note campaign.
His primary selling point seems to be that he used to be in the military, that he has a Patton-like understanding
of what it means to be a commander-in-chief who presides over a nation of quivering cowards created by irresponsible and dishonest
fear-mongering.
... that he used to be a prisoner of war and therefore has an ex-prisoner's perspective against torture. Most
Americans understand that opposition to torture is an American Core Value. This ideal campaign tool has now been squandered
by expediencies of McCain's candidacy.
Problem is McCain must appeal to the same "conservative" Republican constituencies who will have been very
volatile, rigid and inconsistenlty unreliable supporters in the overall administration his presidency would entail beyond
national security.
That of course would be business as usual.
McCain's "same old same old" is worse than Hillary's.
But Hillary has the 8-year reputation of an ex-president husband who seems to have squandered much of his
own good will and popularity with his recent campaign behavior; who doesn't understand Obama's generation and doesn't know
when to shut up.
She also - when her experience is hi-lighted - has an unsuccessful attempt to reform health care 16 years
ago that collided headlong with lobbyist and Republican business-as-usual.
Including this experience, Hillary now proposes that she's learned how to fight dirty - but makes no mention
of asking citizens to help her achieve her goals without having to fight dirty.
She does not seem to be interested in cleaning house, merely sweeping out what's under the rug to make room
for more.
We boomers born in the late 40's and the 50's have had our chance with Clinton and most recently, Doofus,
who is our most recent legacy. If so, that means we muffed it when we had the chance.
The generations to whom Obama appeals OWN the future; have a right to it. These are the generations who have
gotten out TO vote, have gotten out THE vote and outnumber us older folks by tens of millions.
The foolish attempts by Hillary and McCain to cut Obama off at the knees by denigrating hope also diminish
expectations.
They also expose the candidates, campaigns and party faithful who have lost a genuine hope themselves for
the pillars of what really holds this country together.
It's what's wrong when McCain and Hillary - with apparent personal arrogance - ignore the need to talk about
voters acting like citizens, who forget to mention how voters must take on-going action and personal responsibility.
You could make the case that failure to insist that post-election citizens take action causes experience-touting
candidates to seem to mimic other failures: historical leaders around the globe who've pretended to be father, mother or parent
of an entire nation.
... leaders who promised to protect citizens and fix everything needing fixing without citizen help. Few of
them are remembered as benevolent successes and most presided over failure and disaster.
We know that these "when I'm President I will ..." promises are not intended to rule out or exclude citizen
participation. However in talking in this manner, Hillary and McCain are failing to communicate any expectation or demand
of civic responsibility from voters.
Business as usual means that most of the country is purposefully left out of the action - which is what the
Republican Doofus adminstration of 2000-2008 has been all about.
Obama knows that. He is speaking to the generations that will call the shots.
America's core values are founded on hopes and expectations; attitudes that sustain or contrast actual reality.
It's a reality that may reveal the yet-to-be-corrected or something-needs-to-be-done issues that constitute life in this country.
That's why they are "core" values.
It is hope, courage and willingness to tinker with problems. It's in the attempt to change coupled with the
will to focus on equality and national security that might generate laudable civic successes.
The founding fathers were not primarily political veterans in their 50's and 60's who served based on experience
and age. The wisdom of the Constitution did not come about because 100 folks my age put the distillation of their life's experience
into the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
That some my age contributed is true. But that the majority were of my age group is not true. They were closer
to the age of only one of the remaining leadership candidates.
But all of the founders, regardless of age, were significantly united in one of the most important attributes
demanded of leaders ... courage.
We olders owe America's youngers a greater demonstration of patriotism and the taking of responsibility for
our own governance beyond cowardly pretending that experience matters more than courage. We need to demonstrate a belief and
will to look for change when change is necessary.
We must recognize that Hillary's inability to appeal to the majority generational activism of her own party
cannot be explained away or ignored by an appeal to our fears of another "My Pet Goat president" if that moment tragically
returns.
A real leader can rise without need of a resume and only a lack of courage and will runs and hides from that
idea. (Or in the case of the election of 2000, when the stupid voted as a majority block, the exception proves the rule,)
We must recognize that McCain's inability to unite his party demonstrates a dangerous lack of leadership communication
skills. If he has to put on his commander's cap in response to another 911 moment, he'll need guidance in how to communicate
effectively. Or ... he'll have to rely purely on macho tough talk and we know where that last President to do that got us.
The greatest gift we can give our children and grand children is not our fear, not our timid caution in the
face of all the "what might be's" offered up by aging politicians who need us to be fearful so they can get power.
The greatest gift we can and should pass on to the generations that already own and deserve to run the future
is strongly epitomized by Mr. Murrow of my parents' generation.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig
deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men."
That thinking is what makes a generation get remembered as the greatest generation.
