Ebony's Pearls

Flowers and Flag left for Mother's Grave
Originally uploaded by nodigio

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1717926,00.html

Richard Norton Smith: "Character is your magic word, it seems to me — not just what they've done but how they've done it and what they've learned from doing it."

I agree with Mr. Smith, and the conclusions of David von Drehle, the author of this article. It’s not experience that matters, it’s character. Charisma and experience have their places, but we’ve seen that a former actor is neither worse nor better than a person with years of experience. As Mr. Drehle said, if experience mattered that much, the second term would be so much better than the first term of a president.

Instead of listening to the candidates snipe and snark at one another, we should be examining how they’ve handled matters in the past. Even something as simple as dealing with an auto accident can reveal a lot about one’s character. We should look at those types of things. And we should look at how they comport themselves under stress.

In fact, that’s what I think the campaigning is all about, really – not garnering votes so much as showing their true colors. Those who descend into ad hominems, and mud-slinging, and misdirection during their campaign will resort to the same things when dealing with Presidential issues.

Do we really want a president who says, “I didn’t do it!”, “It’s not my fault!”, “Mr. (fitb) gave me erroneous information.” and who spends half the Presidency vacationing?

When I look at the candidates, I look at what they’ve done before, how they handled situations, and how they are bearing up under the stress of campaigning. They’ll all crack or cave at some point or other, the importance lies in HOW they crack and how they recover. This indicates how they’ll be president.

Much as I detest the cultish following Obama has attracted, so far, he’s the one who’s bearing up the best in all of this. He is idealistic, and while that may cause problems during his Presidency, I prefer it immensely to Nixon’s insecurities and secrecies, or Bush’s complete disengagement with America. He’ll make mistakes, misjudgments based on being too optimistic. Other countries, after what Bush has done to the world, will do their best to take advantage of him – and he may let them. I’m not sure if this will be a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. I suppose it depends on how well his character handles things.

And much as I’d like to see a woman as president, I don’t think Clinton is handling the stress well. She’s not pragmatic, practical, or idealistic. She’s opportunistic, and I don’t feel her opportunism is geared towards America so much as it is towards her personal welfare. She’ll be another Bush – out of tune with America, uncaring of what we really want or need just so she can push upon us what she thinks we should have – like the Church did in those papers they’re releasing.

Both of them want to be President so they can promote their pet projects, which is marginally better than what the two main Republican candidates want to do. Marginally – and it depends entirely on how they decide to go about supporting their visions.

I am terrified of getting someone in the Oval Office who lets their religion trump their common sense because I can see how they would feel justified in imposing the most draconian invasions of privacy – all in the name of “protecting” us – just as the Church is claiming their medieval acts were brutal, but kindly and beneficial. They sincerely believe they were doing good – and any presidential candidate of the same mindset terrifies me utterly. McCain and Huckabee both scare me for different reasons. Both want to take away even more of our freedoms because they are convinced they know what’s best for us. Huckabee will do it for religious reasons – God wants him to do it this way and it doesn’t matter that only apportion of his constituents are of that religion – we must all obey his religion’s dictates. He wont be that blunt about it, but that’s what it will ultimately boil down to. McCain will do it because he’s right, damn it, and he’s got the power to enforce it. It will be his way or no way. And a lot of good people will end up either in prison or dead.

Paul, Gravel, and Keyes aren’t getting the publicity they should be getting. What little information I can dig up on them shows that either Gravel or Paul might make a far better President than the ones duking it out so very publicly. We won’t know because the media is ignoring them for the spectacle of Clinton/Obama and McCain/Huckabee.

Keyes – I don’t know why he’s in the race at all.

None of the candidates have addressed any of the real, pressing issues that affect the daily lives of Americans. What are they going to do about the wage-discrepancy? How are they realistically going to lower our national debt? What are they going to do to help full time employees afford to live on their wages at sustainable levels (not wealth, just meeting basic living expenses – which anyone earning less than $15 an hour is finding ever more difficult to do)? How will they help control the insurance industry which is raping us of our health and well being? What will they do about the energy crisis? We don’t hear a lot about the really important issues. Foreign relations is all well and good, but we need to focus inside our borders for a while and let the other countries take care of themselves. They’re all grown-up, they can do that. We can send food and disaster relief when disasters happen, but politics – they have to handle themselves while we straighten our home mess out.