Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Lucidity Wins 10/14/04

George Will called last night’s debate, “Uncommonly substantive,” but George Will is smarter than many of us, and I had visions of the eyes of America glazing over during the candidates' exchanges of numbers, numbers of votes in the Senate, numbers of Americans who’ve lost health care, numbers of dollars our wealthiest few citizens got in tax cuts. All the while, I could see the hands of America reaching for their remotes to watch baseball. Bush seemed to have better control of his demeanor last night than in either of the previous debates, and I couldn’t help but think of Goldilocks’ experimentation with the Three Bears’ porridge. The first debate, Bush’s handlers apparently gave him too much (old-fashioned tranquilizers?), resulting in his being almost incoherent. The second debate, they didn’t give him enough and we got a clear view of Furious George. Last night, they seemed to get it just right. I read this morning on a (private) Democratic message board that the President has postponed his annual physical until after the election. Draw your own conclusions, but this man, the most powerful leader in the world, the guy with his finger on the global trigger, appears to many to be experimenting with medicine. I thought that Bob Schieffer did, without question, the best job of all the moderators, asking a combination of direct, probing and folksy questions, which gave viewers a well-rounded view of both candidates. Bush was armed with an almost surgically implanted crooked smile, and, being the mother that I am, I kept wanting to take a tissue and wipe his lip (Laura may have told him not to “scowl” but that didn’t keep him from sneering). The President used his dual-purpose line, “Stay on the offense,” which he applies to our country’s strategy as well as his debate and campaign strategy, in his opening sentence, after thanking Arizona State. Perhaps this is the heart of his mistake: His is a view of the world that is limited to either offense or defense thus defining relationships as adversarial, eliminating the possibility of cooperative interaction, individually, institutionally, nationally or globally. Religion played an important part last night, and I think it strikes at the heart of the matter at hand. We have a President who believes that he is saved by faith alone, who is certain of his mandate from God, and therefore correct, completely and unquestionably, always. Shieffer asked Bush about a public comment the President made indicating he had checked with a “higher authority” relative to our invasion of Iraq, and Bush responded, quite eloquently, “Prayer and religion sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency. I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, ‘Well, how do you know?’ I said, ‘I just feel it.’” I understand exactly what he meant, because I feel that and live that as well, the abiding calm that comes from prayer and faith. Kerry, in his response, cited a reference he had made earlier in the debate, answering a question about Catholic bishops telling parishioners how to vote, when he quoted James, “What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.” I’m happy for George Bush, the man, that he can “just feel it,” but this nation has a responsibility to the world to do a little more than "just feel it.” We need to be thinking about it, questioning the status quo every moment, and, most importantly we need to elect a leader who doesn’t just shoot from the hip based on his unquestioning faith-based rectitude, but who considers every possibility and makes a conscious choice to translate his faith into works, and then takes the trouble to do the hard work of preparation and study in order to fully grasp the issues, to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk, and to do so, unimpaired. I agree with George Will. These three debates were “uncommonly substantive,” and we’ve gotten a rare view of and into these two men. Kerry is not only smarter, better informed, and more conscious, but his faith comes with a sense of responsibility. While the President basks in the “calmness,” Kerry calls upon us to live what we believe and says, “I think we have a lot more loving of our neighbor to do in this country and on this planet.” President Bush can “feel it” just as well back on his ranch. Neither of these men needs this job. It’s our turn to choose which one of them will serve us, and rarely in history have we had such a well-defined choice. I choose lucid over incoherent, informed over dogmatic, considered over impulsive, conscious over impaired, Kerry over Bush.

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