Integrity

Peggy Noonan had this to say about integrity and presidential candidates:

In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant; Harry Truman wasn't brilliant, and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever. White Houses are always full of quick-witted people with ready advice on how to flip a senator or implement a strategy. You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks.

But you can't buy courage and decency, you can't rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him. If he does, they will give meaning and animation to the great practical requirement of the presidency: He must know why he's there and what he wants to do. He has to have thought it through. He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nontheless, a vision of the future he wishes to create. This is a function of thinking, of the mind, the brain.

The most recent allegations against Donald Trump--unwanted sexual advances, groping, kissing, etc.--is another piece of evidence in the case against Donald Trump's presidency. It's a testament to that John Wooden quote, “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” Though I am not sure if Trump cared if anyone was watching. He does and says what he wants, and then denies and disavows anyone who claims otherwise.

Hillary Clinton isn't much better. She's surrounded herself with vile anti-Catholic advisors who denigrate people of faith who don't fit into their nicely captured vision of what constitutes decency:

Pointing to a magazine article noting that conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch was raising his children as Catholics, Halpin wrote, "Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) ...they must be attracted to the systematic thought and [severely] backwards gender relations."

Palmieri wrote back, "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals."

These advisors also deny, distract, and ignore their words in the public square. And the media lets them get away with it. And these advisors are truly Hillary's voice, coaching her through ever single public utterance she makes, even going so far as to screen and receive questions in advance to script her out fully. I don't think for one minute she'd be horrified by these sentiments.

These are the times that try men's souls, they say. All of these truisms about politics--lesser of two evils, damned if you do, etc. seem even more true this year.

I don't know how we'll emerge from this. Maybe we'll remember that this exceptional country we are proud to call home is still our last, best hope, and perhaps we'll resume the fight to steer us away from a thousand days or years or darkness. Or maybe we'll sink into the quagmire and allow this pervasive bitterness to subsume us. Maybe we'll forgive, and we'll reconcile, and the civil war the right is fighting we'll end in some kind of new and better union. It'll be interesting to see where we go in a year.

But for many, all integrity has been lost this year. And I understand all of those arguments about the rural/urban divide, the haves and have-nots. I understand that many are angry and feel ignored. But I don't understand how our leaders aren't better, aren't higher, aren't more concerned about being decent and having that moral sense. You don't need to be "decent" to be a good president. You do need to have integrity, though, to be a leader that others admire and want to follow. We do not have that today with Trump and Clinton.

Last Night's Veep Debate

Tuesday night's Vice Presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence provided the starkest contrasts between what should have been and what truly is. Re: Kaine, I'm not a fan, I would not vote for him, and I think his abortion position is terribly wrong. But at least he is not corrupt. He's not a liar. He's not been indoctrinated in the Clinton machine for decades and he doesn't control a crony-heavy personal foundation that will siphon off a cut of whatever blood money is thrown its way. He's a mainstream liberal.

And Pence...if he hadn't needed to spend much of the debate time fending off, ignoring, pivoting, and circumventing from various cutting comments about Trump, what a debate it could have been! He was thoughtful, smart, humble, and exuded a maturity that hasn't been seen by any other candidate running. A Ryan/Pence or Cotton/Pence or Sasse/Pence ticket...I mean, think about what could have been. A sober discussion of the issues, someone the base could respond to, true adult behavior as opposed to vindictive asides and ego-boosting, trash-talking tirades. You know, what we used to call ideas based debate.

There's so much that runs through my mind when I think what this country has lost in this election. It started the day, really, when Justice Scalia died, when there was still a chance that the republic could be kept. And yeah, I'm aware that the 1800 election was fought by surrogates for candidates, who for that time, intensely disliked each other. I know our founders had family feuds, that rumor mongering and adultery gossip and that no less than Grover Cleveland faced his share of scandal. But we've never had an election where we've so many sidebars from a vindictive Miss Universe, Trump University, email scandals, name calling, feuds against Megyn Kelly and other journalists, twitter rants at all hours of the day, real and imagined health scares, allegations of complicity in a presidential assassinations...if only Mike Pence could really have told us what he thought. But able public servant, who has already chosen which bed he would lie in, did what he had to do.

In some ways, the United States of America has never been more prosperous. Luxuries that people suffering through Hurricane Matthew in Haiti are enduring--smartphones, luxury headphones, smart televisions, $5 lattes, designer handbags, etc--these are all items that everyone seems to access. And yes, that is a classist observation. But in a generation, Americans are able to transcend the limitations they've endured because we are a society where anyone--including the president of the United States--can rise up. To look at the media, there's no way out other than opiod hell, minimum wage jobs, and racial animosity by a hostile white upperclass that is dedicated to keeping the man down. And that is purely ridiculous. America was, is, and always will be great. Americans, they are the ones who fall short of accepting the gift of the last, best hope of earth.

I have gone through my times of utter depression this election years. This is not the idea of America that our founding generation bestowed on us. Certainly Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump aren't the ideal. But only America, with its constitution and separation of powers and faith in the power of the people could curb whatever dangerous tendencies that other hold.

I would have been ecstatic had the race this year been Pence vs. Kaine. I don't intend to settle, but what that means, I am not quite there yet.