Motley Moose – Archive

With the final presidential debate a day away, tonight is probably my last chance to weigh in on the previous debate without sounding woefully untimely.  

I’d like to talk about one very small portion of the debate that touched an emotional chord with me, but seems to have largely gone un-discussed, and that is Senator Obama’s answer to the final question of the debate.  The question was from a woman in New Hampshire and it was “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?”

This is a question after my own heart.  To me, the most repellent characteristic of the Bush administration has been its attitude of complete certainty in the “rightness” or “correctness” of its own actions.  I speak not of the actions or policies themselves, but of the way in which they seem to be spoken of and implemented: in a manner of total confidence, betraying not the slightest bit of self-doubt or self-examination.  I believe that a culture of recklessness and thoughtlessness pervade the present administration.  So, the question posed by “Peggy” of New Hampshire seemed to me like a breath of fresh air because it asked the candidates to speak not of all the things they are certain of, but rather the things of which they are not.  It is a question that asks for humility, thoughtfulness, and self-examination – qualities which I believe are vitally important aspects of leadership, at least equally so with the more-appreciated qualities of confidence, decisiveness, and strength.    

Perhaps it is for those reasons that I found myself wholly disappointed and repulsed by the answer of Barack Obama:    

Obama: My wife, Michelle, is there and she could give you a much longer list than I do. And most of the time, I learn it by asking her.

But, look, the nature of the challenges that we’re going to face are immense and one of the things that we know about the presidency is that it’s never the challenges that you expect. It’s the challenges that you don’t that end up consuming most of your time.

But here’s what I do know. I know that I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for the fact that this country gave me opportunity. I came from very modest means. I had a single mom and my grandparents raised me and it was because of the help of scholarships and my grandmother scrimping on things that she might have wanted to purchase and my mom, at one point, getting food stamps in order for us to put food on the table.

Despite all that, I was able to go to the best schools on earth and I was able to succeed in a way that I could not have succeeded anywhere else in this country.

The same is true for Michelle and I’m sure the same is true for a lot of you.

And the question in this election is: are we going to pass on that same American dream to the next generation? Over the last eight years, we’ve seen that dream diminish.

Wages and incomes have gone down. People have lost their health care or are going bankrupt because they get sick. We’ve got young people who have got the grades and the will and the drive to go to college, but they just don’t have the money.

And we can’t expect that if we do the same things that we’ve been doing over the last eight years, that somehow we are going to have a different outcome.

We need fundamental change. That’s what’s at stake in this election. That’s the reason I decided to run for president, and I’m hopeful that all of you are prepared to continue this extraordinary journey that we call America.

But we’re going to have to have the courage and the sacrifice, the nerve to move in a new direction.

Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Obama’s answer essentially amounted to the dismissal of the question through a joke and then going on to devote the next 17 sentences to what he “do[es] know” in complete contravention of the spirit of the original question.  

Now, allow me to insert the mandatory disclaimer here that Senator McCain’s answer was, in my view, no better or more true to the spirit of the interrogatory.  I found Senator Obama’s answer more personally repugnant, however, precisely because I want so very badly to believe in him.  I want to believe more than simply that he is ‘better than the other guy.’  I want to believe that he can truly Lead (capital ‘L’) this country.  But his answer to the above question is emblematic of how he has consistently failed to show me what I need to see to believe that he is different.  

I’m not accusing Senator Obama of thoughtlessness or arrogance.  I believe that in his debates and speeches and interviews he has shown himself to be a very thoughtful man.  So why did this  thoughtful and articulate man fail to provide a meaningful example of something he didn’t know.  Why did this same man so feebly answer a similar question during the primaries about his greatest weakness?  TRANSCRIPT (answering essentially that his greatest weakness was that he is bad at keeping track of paperwork).   I think we can all agree that (if he is human) he, by definition, must have some significant weaknesses and flaws.  No matter how intelligent he is, all the things he doesn’t know relevant to the presidency alone must be enough to fill the Library of Congress.  So is it too much to ask to show the humility to share important examples of each with the very people he is asking to trust him with incredible power?  Why answer the question the way he did?

A dear friend of mine provided a sound (and probably accurate) explanation of Senator Obama’s answer.  According to her, Obama probably had a sense that he had done well in the debate and was doing well in the election.  It was the last question of the night, all he had to do was play it close to the vest: deflect the question and don’t give the McCain camp any ammunition to use against him.  

That explanation, while probably true, is unsatisfying and cuts right to heart of why I can’t bring myself to truly believe in Senator Obama, even though I will almost certainly vote for him.  Senator Obama answered that question with the seeming objective of ‘winning’ the debate’ and ‘winning the presidency’ rather than acknowledging the unquestionable truth that there are many important things that he doesn’t know — and that many voters would like to know what those things are.  Winning became more important than the truth and more important than doing the voters (and the question-writer in particular) the common courtesy of respectfully and forthrightly answering the question.

Plato and other have theorized that the best leader of a state would be someone who, while qualified, didn’t want the office or the power.  I don’t demand quite that much out of the candidates and certainly I won’t blame them for wanting to win.  But the candidate that captures my heart, the one that I will be able to truly believe in, is the one who shows that she is willing to walk away from the Presidency if she can’t have it on her terms.  The person that I will truly believe in will be the person for whom respect, decency, openness and, above all, the truth, remain sacrosanct even when tempted with the perhaps the most powerful and coveted office on earth – the very embodiment of worldly power and authority.  For such a person, the truth of his own weakness and inadequacies is more important that concern for how the acknowledgement of those weakness might be used against him.  For such a person, likewise, fear-mongering and destructive negativity in campaigning are unthinkable no matter how much they might help her in the polls because the price is simply too high.

I don’t know if such a person exists or ever will.  But here’s the paradoxical thing: if such a person did exist – if someone really had the courage to be decent, respectful, honest, and open even if it meant walking away from the presidency – I truly believe that that person would not be hurt politically by their integrity.  I think they would inspire, captivate, and truly Lead the people of this country.  In the end, I believe that their courage and humility would probably help them win.  So, Senator Obama, if you’re listening: the next time you’re asked about what you don’t know or what your greatest weakness is… answer it honestly.  I won’t turn from you because you just because you are human.  And I have faith that others won’t either.