January 17, 2007:
At the end of the event, a man yelled out to Obama that he will be a better president than George Bush. Obama responded, "So would you!"
Well, at least he understands that much.
Since this contest for the Democratic nomination began, I have steadfastly supported no one (despite temptations to throw my vote away for Gravel or Dodd). I’ve done so for many reasons, mostly that I don’t think that it makes any difference who I support, or that there will be enough of a difference between any of the major Democratic contenders as President that it is worth the effort for me to care or to develop an informed opinion. Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, or Sen. Edwards will be the nominee whether I do anything or not, and any one of them will be more deserving than whomever the Republicans might nominate, and will be a far better President than the current holder of the office.
Big whoop.
I’m beginning to come to terms with another reason for my lack of interest. Simply put, being better than the Republican nominee, or the current President, is – as Sen. Obama so astutely pointed out – not much of an accomplishment. And sadly, it is quite possibly the most notable accomplishment that any of the candidates can list on their application to us for the job.
One morning, as a throng of Shi’ite pilgrims jostled their way inside the Imam Kadhim shrine in northern Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt. A second bomber waited around the corner and set off his belt when survivors ran away from the first blast. Then a third bomber blew himself up. And a fourth.
When I arrived at the scene an hour later, I saw corpses covered with white sheets. Arms and fingers had been blown atop third-story balconies. Piles of shoes belonging to the dead dotted the floor. Later, after visiting the local hospital to talk to survivors, I saw dozens of bodies piled outside the morgue, covered with blue sheets, rotting under the sun. Relatives of the dead and injured sobbed, but the doctors went stoically about their business. "Today is nothing special," one told me. "We see catastrophes like this once a week."
That evening, I met a group of CPA staffers for dinner in the palace. They talked about the interim constitution that had just been drafted, with its expansive bill of rights. "It’ll be a model for the Middle East," one said.
Hearing about their work, I stopped thinking about what I had seen earlier that day. In the Green Zone, I could hear stories with happy endings. Nobody mentioned the bombing over dinner. The shrine was just a few miles north of the Green Zone, no more than a ten-minute drive away. Had they heard about what happened? Did they know that dozens had died? "Yeah, I saw something about it on the office television," said the man to my right. "But I didn’t watch the full report. I was too busy working on my democracy project."
~Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City"
Not a day passes when I do not hope that one of our candidates for the office of President, good Christians all, will mention in a stump speech that we have sinned. Indeed, that they have sinned. Each one of them has been in some way responsible for the oversight and conduct of our Federal government. Not one of them was among those who brought the disasterous conduct of a needless and shameful war to the attention of the Congress or the American people whom they wish to lead. Not one of them was the discoverer that the soldiers who they sent into battle went in without the proper gear or training or that the Veterans Hospitals where we care for those who are maimed due to those failures were dank hovels. None of them were the first to reveal to us that prisoners held without charge were being tortured – or indeed have managed to bring an end to that torture being done with our money and in our names.
When they were needed to keep these sins off of our souls, they were out telling us how important it was that they be our next President.
Like Barack Obama, I am a believer in something audacious. I believe in the audacity of responsibility. I believe that as a tax-paying citizen of the United States, I am in some part responsible for all that is done with my money and in my name, no matter how much I opposed it with every means I could muster. The debt that I owe, and the stain on my conscience, is beyond my capacity to ever repay or scrub clean, though I am doing my best and plan to continue to try.
But though I can own up to my own responsibility, I also see that there are those who are far more responsible than I. And high among those are those who sought the office, took the fine salary and power than came with it, to be representatives of the States of the Union in Congress. And how poorly have they lived up to that? How little have they accomplished for you and I and the people of this nation? How can I ignore or obfuscate the sad fact that the Congress in which the two leading Democratic contenders sit is closer to putting Miguel Tejada in jail for lying to Congress about whether or not Rafael Palmiero ever used steroids while Alberto Gonzalez walks free despite lying about being sent to intimidate the sedated Attorney General of the United States in his hospital bed?
This coming November, I will once again bring myself to my local polling place, where I will cast votes for my city council and state senator with the knowledge that my vote really matters in those races. And while I am there, I will cast a vote for the Democratic nominee for President, whom I already know will be the best candidate for that office. But I will do so without my earlier enthusiasm.
The truth is that all the Democratic contenders would make for a better President. But I will not say I am for any of them. By their actions, and as much by their lack of same, all three have proven time and again unfit to lead me. I dare say that they have all proven unfit to lead the caliber of American who I know will read this here. I do not believe that anyone in this community would have the power to bring to light such sins and to fight to put an end to them and do so little. Each candidate may be, in some ways, far better than the others.
That is not enough, not by far, to make them good enough to claim to be the leader of you or of me.