Watching Obama today give a monumental speech on U.S. race relations in terms that I have not heard outside the halls of academia, made me realize that here stands an American Politician who has it with in him, if left to his conscience, to make the world a slightly better place for us all.
I saw a man with integrity tempered by real world pragmatism utter words that he truly believed. Words uttered to calm a tempest certainly, but the words were designed not manufactured. The belief in the philosophy behind the words was genuine not a facade erected for the occasion.
needless to say, I was moved and grateful for the privilege of witnessing a moment in history that for once in my life was not disastrous in its implications.
Then I started listening to the pundits, and though most were weary of criticizing at the beginning (almost afraid to venture without testing the waters ) not long after the applauds had settled than the word JUDGMENT started to be bandied around like a party platter.
The whole implication of the Pastor wright controversy apparently was, for those who did not want to sully their podiums with pejorative racial inferences, a matter of judgment. they kept saying it again and again " how could a serious politician not be cognoscente of the the pit falls of such an association? How could his judgment be trusted when he did not act to rid himself of such a meddlesome pastor?
The volume of the media choral over the weekend was so loud that I did not question the premise of the Judgment judgment.
But today it was repeated again, much more softly and considerately so that I heard it this time, like a cracked church bell ring sour to my ears.
Suddenly I started wandering what do they mean by Judgment? Do they mean Moral Judgment or Political? Because you see I think the should insist on a full measure of the former but only a modicum of the latter in their president.
A president is a leader of men, one to whom, by definition, the final decision will fall. He is not a scientist or an economist or a general... he is not an expert on any discipline, he is a vessel for all knowledge. He is the instrument by which that knowledge is applied. The Trick is to pick the man who will apply it wisely (read judgment).
The Judgment so ubiquitously referred to by the media is political judgment, the judgment of personal political survival, regardless of the consequences to others (read pastor Wright). How could he possibly be so foolish as to jeopardize himself so?
It did not occur to them that by having not discarded Pastor Wright preemptively, Senator Obama may have shown Moral judgment. The judgment to do what is morally correct regardless of personal expediency. To honor Service and duty to your community, to not deny who you are or where you come from. To acknowledge your frailties and forgive the frailties of others.
Not to pander to the lowest common denominators that only diminishes the whole while enriching the part. To actually try to win this candidacy with his soul and the soul of the nation intact.
And finally by refusing to discard the pastor today in a defensive hypocritical maneuver, he may have proven himself the first courageous politician this country has seen in 40 years. He stood there and denounced the rhetoric but not the man. He rejected the sin but not the sinner. He kept faith with those who had faith in him.
Now after 7 years of a president who has broken faith with the people, the constitution and his to oath to serve this country for the sake of political and personal expediency, is it not time for a different sort of man?
So I ask you, who ever you are which would you rather have; A president with superior Political Judgment or superior Moral Judgment?
With nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.
Thomas Jefferson