We've been living six years with a president for whom fibbing and evasion are a way of life. Whether it's glossing over his military record or flat-out lying over the presence of weapons of mass destruction as a rationale for an unfounded war in Iraq, George W. Bush has defiled the White House.
Before W, we had a president who lied about much less serious matters. ("When Clinton lied, no one died.") Still, Bill Clinton also tarnished the office by having an affair with an intern and then lying about it. For all his good work, Clinton's legacy was marred - and his political capital squandered - by his inability to keep his carnal impulses in check within the Oval Office.
It's time for a president who will restore dignity to the world's most powerful position. Fatigued with both the Bushes and the Clintons, we need a president who has a strong and serious committment to telling the truth, and - beyond that - to the politics of personal and collective responsibility.
Is John Edwards that person? Is he THE person? I am not yet prepared to say "hell yeah," but I noticed many positive signs in his appearances today.
Lack of political theater: Edwards' New Orleans announcement was extremely low key, but what struck me most was the fact he didn't feel compelled to truck in a raft of diverse people to stand with him. The kids in the neighborhood with whom he was working this week are all black, and that's who we saw. For Edwards, it was clearly no big deal. He was comfortable in the demographic reality of the setting he chose for his announcement. How refreshing is that?
Tomorrow starts today: Edwards said we can't wait for January 2009 to start solving our nation's problems, and that we can't look to the president to solve all our problems. With more than 22 months until the 2008 election, Edwards is smart to call citizens to action. He can set an agenda and formulate policies (like universal health care) that he'd enact if elected, but it's up to us - in our communities and state and local governments - to take action over the next two years on such issues as pursuing living wages and publicizing children's health insurance programs. We can do that under Edwards' "One America" banner, or we can do it in a myriad other ways. My sense is he won't care, as long as it gets done.
Other framing: "We ought to be patriotic about things other than war." Brilliant. Yellow ribbon stickers on SUVs are so easy. Real change is hard and requires sacrifice, but the results are so much more worthwhile. "The McCain Doctrine." Edwards went easy on his potential Dem rivals, as he should, but he got in a solid jab at GOP frontrunner John McCain and the Arizona senator's campaign for escalating the war in Iraq, dubbing it "the McCain Doctrine." Ouch.
One Corps: As a local coordinator for Howard Dean in 2003-2004, I always felt Dean Corps was one of the coolest things about our campaign. Edwards has a similar One Corps organization set up to help people make a difference in their communities and other communities across the nation. Good for him. This drives home the idea that government can't solve all our problems and that volunteers can make a huge difference. At a time when Bush tells us to go shopping, Edwards tells us to get our hands dirty in our community. There's a huge hunger for this, too: At his late-afternoon town hall meeting in Des Moines, Edwards said 100 new One Corps chapters were launched today alone.
"I take full responsibility." Edwards reiterated today the fact that he voted for the Iraq War, and the fact that his vote was a mistake. While Hillary Clinton continues to rationalize her vote, Edwards is straightforward in admitting he screwed up. "The foundation for moral leadership is to tell the truth," he says. He also was forthright in analyzing his shortcomings as a candidate, chiefly his lack of government foreign policy experience. In response to a media question in New Orleans, he pointed out that the Bush administration's foreign policy team has decades of experience, and yet it has failed miserably. As Edwards said, experience doesn't automatically equate to judgement, vision, nor the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing world. It was a great answer.