Do you own a yardstick? I'm not talking about the kind you use to measure cloth, or pieces of wood, although I admit I miss seeing those big old heavy wooden rulers around. I mean the kind of mental yardstick that you use to measure the world around you and the happenings in it.
When I was a kid, someone told me about these yardsticks and the idea has stuck with me ever since. If you own such a yardstick, you are far less apt to be blown around with the heavy winds of a presidential election, or any other crisis for that matter. You always have a sane and sensible way to tell whether something is really an issue or whether it's a distraction, whether you need to worry about a thing, or whether it will pass. A good mental measuring device can also act as a great bullshit meter as well. If you hear something outrageous and all the people around you are rushing to comment on it or act on it, it can be a good idea to consult your yardstick and see if the thing seems as true and important as the people around you make it out to be.
This is one way to keep yourself steady in the face of overwhelming churn.
We support Rev. Wright
We don't support Rev. Wright
We support/don't support Hillary
Obama is right
Obama is wrong
We're winning
We're doomed
Fox interview - Good!
Fox interview - Bad!
It can all be a bit too much to take sometimes if you can't provide yourself with some sort of anchor. Our progressive world gets hit with hundreds of little windstorms like this every week. If you react to the first one, then react to the second based on your reaction to the first, and so on, you can find yourself pulled so far away from what you really think that you'll wonder how you ended up in such a far-flung place.
Having a good mental yardstick of what you think is right, and what is sensible gives you a steady referral point in the middle of crazy times. It's not that your yardstick never changes, but the rate of change is very slow. A good yardstick is based on life lessons, not the topic du jour.
I think Barack Obama has a good yardstick. I've been reading various opinions about his repudiation of Rev. Wright today. For those people who are expressing dismay about what he said today, have a look at your yardstick if you have one. If not, you can look at mine:
If you are a presidential candidate, and a former associate accuses you of "playing politics", of being false, and continues to be seen enjoying himself at your expense, do you distance yourself from the person? What about if the person is given to wild accusations about the US creating AIDS in the black population? Should you say that you disagree with this person, and feel that they are wrong?
My yardstick says that if the candidate intends to honestly try to represent ALL the people of America and bring everyone together, they cannot possibly continue to support a person like this.
I have been watching Barack Obama carefully to see if he uses a yardstick and I believe he does. When confronted with a new issue, he measures his response against what he knows to be real and true, and then he says what he thinks. Sometimes he does this despite the consequences. I think people are starting to realize that this is how he responds. It was especially clear when he made the decision to go on Fox. I disagreed with that decision, but I could see the yardstick at work. This means we might not like everything he says and does, but we can understand why he's doing it. We can be sure that there's been some intelligence applied to it, which is quite refreshing after 8 years with GWB. We can believe that he's doing it because in his estimation, it's the best thing to do, and not because of political expediency or because it enriches his friends.
It's too much to ask that a candidate agree with each one of us 100% of the time. It's not too much to ask that they have a good yardstick that they use to measure their decisions against a lifetime of experience.