And when I say makings, I mean makings of character. It’s high time we had a person of character in the White House. The Clintons don’t have character. Being a boomer myself, I’m disappointed that the triangulating, cynical Clintons have come to represent our generation of wide-eyed 60s idealists on today’s political scene. Compare, on the last primary night, the two speeches of Clinton and Obama. Hillary gave a brief nod to Barack while he showered her in fulsome praise. He’s got grace. She doesn’t. Poor Hillary doesn’t even realize that history has passed her by. She said she was “not making any decisions tonight,” not realizing that the train of history has already left the station and she has no decisions left to make except leave the stage. She did her hurt-victim-who-lost-her-candy thing: she said she wanted “respect.” I was half-expecting her, like some high-school kid in a Jesse Jackson audience, to start yelling, “I am somebody!”
Character is something you earn by being thoroughly decent all your life. As a rule, you can’t count on politicians to have character. The job knocks it out of you. Even FDR wasn’t a man of great character. Come to think of it, the last figure of great character we had was Lincoln, and before him George Washington. It says something about the miracle that is America that we can produce as president a George Bush — a scurrilous upper-class bad character — and then, right on his foul heels, follow with an up-from-nothing good guy like Obama.
They’re very rare, people of character, and in politics, they come once or twice a century. This century we’ve had Gandhi, Churchill and Mandela.
Barack Obama could never be in their company, because the challenges he faces are not as great as the ones they did. Each in their own way had to save civilization for their respective countries.
Mind you, that may be the very challenge Obama faces, too. America’s healthcare, public education, economic opportunities, communal bonds and moral stature are all broken – all the things that make us an actual civilization as opposed to a mindless tribe of 300 million TV-dumbed-down, celebrity-worshipping, junkfood-chomping, litter-producing, war-mongering, soundbite-lulled, commodity-obsessed consumers. If he can fix our broken civilization, Obama will be a good president.
And come to think of it, we actually do face a life-and-death challenge that imperils our planet and would have sorely tried the likes of Gandhi, Churchill and Mandela: global warming. Hey, if Obama has the character to move the world towards a big change on that, he could be a great president. Not only of America, but of the whole planet.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Wow Adam, this one is so amazingly out of touch with reality it's like you're channelling messages from another universe.
Nice to see you're warming up to Bush, though.
Dave
2 - maria
this is a great article. I hope that more Americans allow themselves the opportunity to read through some of your insight. Well done!
3 - bliffle
Engrossing article with an interesting Point Of View. But a little long.
4 - Georgio
Adam ..It was a long article but I read it all and I agreed with most of it ..First of all I don't think you where fair to Hillary..after all she did get 18 million votes and she won the states that the Dems need to win in the general and O bama won states that we will not win in the general especialy the south..
I am from Chicago and have followed Obamas rise from the beginning..truth is he never would have even become the Democratic candidate to run for the ticket if his opponent who was 17 pts ahead of him didn't have a wife who went on TV and said he is a wife beater,,so Obama won the right to face the republican candidate who also was favored to win the election but can you believe it ..the repulican also had a scandle that did him in so one might say OBama became a Senator by pure luck..I would also say he beat Hillary with pure luck also because if the association he had with the reverend and others was known from the beginning he would not have gotten to first base .
I am a Democrate and will vote for him but I have serious problems with him ..In the beginning I liked him because of his message of hope and a new beginning that politics in Washington would change..But the longer the fight went on the more he sounded just like every other politician..
The black community backed him 94% and if that is not raceism in reverse than I have a bridge I want to sell to you..the GOP will exploit this because they will put doubts in minds of white voters because they are not worried about turning the blacks against them because they know they are not going to get thier votes anyway...
Adam I hope he can be the kind of President that will help this country but I see no chance at all unless Hillary is on the ticket and right now I don't see that happening.
5 - Baronius
Georgio, that's interesting because I can't see Obama winning with Clinton on the ticket. Second-guessing from Hillary, third-guessing from Bill, parallel organizations... it would be the worst thing for party unity. A party unifies under one leader, with no looking back.
Dave, I found the article interesting because it probably accurately reflects the views of people I disagree with. It's interesting to see facts (and opinions) used as building blocks to create something I'd never imagine. It doesn't make sense to me that someone could look at Obama and see coolness and character, but the truth is that some people do.
6 - Georgio
Baronius..the reason I say Hillary has to be on the ticket is because she won states that the Dems need to win ..Obama won states that the GOP will win in the general..any other VP that he picks could get him one or two states but this election will come down to Fl ,OH ,PA, Mich..Obama can't win these states without Hillary.
7 - Baronius
Georgio - I don't buy into this thinking that FL, OH, PA, and MI are wearing chastity belts that only Clinton can unlock. Clinton won two of those states because Obama didn't campaign in them. In Ohio, the GOP has made such fools of themselves that I can't imagine them voting for a Republican for a decade. That leaves Pennsylvania, the state of bitter gun-toting Bible-thumpers. They've got more problems with Obama than a running mate could solve.