Sarah Palin has succeeded in removing herself from the equation by her sterling performance Thursday night. It is now between John McCain and Barack Obama.
If President Obama is in our future, if he is the one who stands up there to take the oath on Inauguration Day, I will cheer, I will pray for him, I will celebrate. It will be an historic occasion. It will be one of the greatest moments in all of human history. I will have the audacity to hope that Barack Hussein Obama turns out to be a great leader at a time, once again, of Civilization’s greatest peril.
It will not be the first time that a man of unrevealed moral courage and integrity has risen to the nation’s highest office. It has been the case with many of our Presidents, from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln to John Kennedy to Richard Nixon. It is the democratic crap shoot. The polis, the citizenry, the Palinesque rubes, have no understanding of the “issues”, but they may, hopefully, usually, but not always, be capable of judging, in spite of the media filter, the character of the contestants in the democratic beauty pageant.
I, myself, have seen no evidence of courage in Barack Obama, and I have seen, as we all have, undeniable courage in the character of John McCain. For me, that is the deciding factor. Obama may have it, or he may not. McCain undoubtedly has it. In the times to come, this will be absolutely essential in our President.
Hemingway defined courage as grace under pressure. Obama is certainly graceful, but I have not yet seen him exhibit courage under pressure, other than the courage to even presume to offer oneself as a candidate for President of the United States of America, something I suspect Obama himself did not expect to have gone this far.
In fact, when pressed with uncomfortable questions, Obama has been testy and petulant. His tendency has been, so far, when the chips are down, to play it safe, to equivocate, to shift the blame. I have seen grace, and more than grace, under pressure, from John McCain, and now I have seen it in Sarah Palin as well.
This has little to do with the issues of health care or tax policy or war, or any of the other issues that I and my fellow political geeks value so highly. This is about the real deal, not the hypocrisy that all politicians necessarily indulge in during campaigns. Who is this guy, or gal? Obama might turn out OK. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t too bad. Harry Truman turned out pretty damn well. Ronald Reagan was fairly successful. Kennedy might have been great. Who knows? Obama might just turn out to be the cat’s pajamas.
Why am I so doubtful?
John,
Now I know you are really not thinking clearly, when you think Sarah Palin did a good job. Your standards are really low…what’s got into you?
Don’t just be a copycat for the right.
Please!
Your earnest comrade,
Rico