The courage of real progress

Here's the headline:

Analysis: Obama wants voters to remember Clinton's past

Here's what Obama said:

"'She has gone through this,' Obama said. 'I recall when, back in 1992, when she made a statement about how, what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies? And people attacked her for being elitist and this and that. And I remember watching that on TV and saying, `Well, that's not who she is. That's not what she believes. That's not what she meant.'

'And I think Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson from it because she's adopting the same tactics,' Obama said."

I guess it's always darkest before the dawn.

But it's fuckin' dark outside, right now. And I could use a little sunlight.

I don't know if I've ever seen so disappointed with my country as I am, right now. Everything about my country reeks of, "We do not deserve the power we seek," right now.

I guess I was naive, growing up, thinking that America was more worthy than this election is demonstrating. I think she's more worthy. I just think her ugliest instincts are overwhelming her most decent instincts, right now.

It doesn't have to be that way.

But it will take confidence in our strongest liberal democratic values to turn things around.

It's so strange watching a nation conceived in liberty angling so hard against its own founding values and the strongest values that America and the world has to offer, all so we don't have to face our cowardice to be better.

The kids and I have been studying the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence in U.S. History. It took so much courage for those Founding Fathers to take on the most powerful empire in the world, at the time, for liberty and independence.

You'd think we could dig deep and find some of that courage, right now.

I think we can.

Courage is not living without fear. Courage is doing the right thing in the face of fear.

I think we have that in us.

We ought to, given how America was conceived.

What this bitter discussion says about us

By winning back unhappy GOP voters, McCain makes it a race

Bitter GOP voters, you might say. As it turns out, there's quite a few of them. Including many rich Republicans who write for wealthy newspapers. And plenty of rich liberals in the same boat, for that matter. Plenty of bitter people in the world, rich and poor. How incredibly sad, I must say.

McCain and Clinton may both be calculating wins based on flattering the vanities of petty and bitter citizens that want to find some protection from a world that they always feel is victimizing them. It's so sad, isn't it. It's always the decent, thoughtful, and compassionate who are always victimizing all of the nasty, petty, and bitter. It is always the narrow-minded and hard-hearted who are being victimized by their too soft brethren. If we could only find a way to protect the mean-spirited amongst us from the decent and compassionate, only then could we have a better world.

But, alas, the decent, compassionate, and thoughtful never seem to learn from the error of their ways. And it, thus, on the shoulders of the assholes to save all of us from ourselves.

It almost makes you want to cry, doesn't it?

And I guess it is the only gamble left for those banking on cynical power gambles to animate their political careers rather than thoughtful and inspirational leadership that tackles the nation's and world's problems more effectively.

Right now, I'm voting for McCain, until I hear Obama say he's not pulling out and he's not pressuring for a pullout which artificially distorts the discussion about what to do in Iraq with "How do we get the fuck out of there?" instead of "How do we clean up this mess with some integrity?"

Those who can't find the integrity to leave behind their bitterness, pettiness, and cowardice should never be taken as seriously as those with more integrity to our strongest values, obviously, really, to anyone not trying to rationalize what a shithead they are. And those who are more honest should be taken more seriously.

It is telling about the American political process that a candidate who gets more honest with the electorate about itself is one that so many people want to punish, isn't it? It doesn't just tell us something about power. It tells us something about how honest we are and our political process really is, with ourselves and one another.

And how sad that we might get so lost in our own bullshit that we might actually choose pettiness over more genuine courage and honesty.

But we can't choose it for long.

Because pettiness and cowardice don't lead anywhere.

There really is a reason that courage and integrity are our most cherished values.

And it's not because they go good with barbeque.