Rumors of Far Despairs

“Any act by which severe pain or suffering , whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.”

Definition of “torture” in the United Nations Convention Against Torture

Just when I think that maybe some form of sanity has returned to politics in Washington DC, I am made to face the realization that I am self-delusional. I really thought that for once we were going to debate the issues. Silly me! I now know that we are – once again – going to debate everything but the issues.

Specifically, the issue we are not going to debate is the place of torture in America’s tool kit of investigational devices. This would be an interesting debate and one which sorely needs to occur so that America can find its lost soul. In my humble opinion, the debate should be short and sweet simply because the answer is that it has no place given our mores, morals and legal obligations. However, I realize that I am, at heart, a simple man given to adherence to simple homilies. Given this realization, I am more than willing to let the debate linger on longer than it took me to reach this conclusion since there are apparently a number of people who either (a) don’t understand what it means to be an American when it comes to this issue, or (b) (i) don’t understand the historical definition of torture or (ii) want to redefine it retroactively to make acts previously considered despicable to be free of its taint.

But, we aren’t going to have this debate if several interested parties have their way. Instead, if we are the Republican Congressional leadership, we are going to debate what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it. If we are Dick Cheney, we are going to debate what the unknown memos he has demanded the release of actually say – do they find that we got meaningful information out of the actions now being questioned (as Mr. Cheney asserts) or didn’t we (as many specialists in the area assert). Both are obfuscations of the real issue, but that’s what we do best in Foggy Bottom – obscure the real issues because we might actually have to take a stand and be counted if we discuss issues that really matter.

Think about it for a minute. Do you really give a damn what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it? For that matter, for purposes of the real debate we need to have, do we care whether the CIA lied to her or not? I assert that is another discussion for another day.

Do you really care whether torture is effective or not? If you have any moral standards to which you adhere in your daily life (regardless of their source), you ought not to care. I assert that even if torture is highly effective (the evidence suggests otherwise, but let’s assume for just the merest moment that it is), we ought, as Americans, to have the courage to decry its use by others and to forbid it in our own dealings. And, in fact, we Americans have done just that! The United States signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1988 and the Senate ratified the treaty in 1994. It is the law of our land even if you don’t believe in the United Nations and think it akin to the Tooth Fairy. Our own Senate ratified the treaty and that ratification makes it the law of our land.

I wonder how long it will be before the American voting populace truly decides to throw the rascals out of Washington DC (the “Other Washington” to us simple folks out here in Humptulips County). I thought we had a good start on the process of ridding our nation’s capitol of the vermin, but the media certainly doesn’t seem to understand that the above-described discussions are red herrings (look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!). I wonder how long it will be, if ever, before the new leadership in Washington rises up and says: “Enough! We are wasting the people’s time and money, let’s have the real debate.”

After reading the last paragraph, you have probably come to the realization that in some respects I do believe in the Tooth Fairy – and in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the concept of the Good/Honest Politician. I do believe that we can get these discussions right if only we stay focused and don’t allow ourselves to be misled or to become shunted aside by obfuscation. The question is whether we have the will and the moral fiber to assert ourselves.

Hmmm. Maybe I had better reconsider the existence of the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus the Easter Bunny and the Good/Honest Politician, but I do so want to believe.

President Obama suggested to the graduating class at the University of Notre Dame this weekend that there should be an honest debate about abortion rights and that each of us should respect our opponents’ opinions. He was dead right when he said this. So, I have to ask: Where is his voice and his leadership on the issue of torture? He is sending very mixed messages our way: “Yes, we will release the memos authorizing the use of torture; no, we won’t release the photographs that establish its use.” “Yes, our actions were reprehensible and un-American; no, we won’t prosecute anyone who authorized the activity and we should only look forward and not back.”

President Obama would be well advised to remember that sometimes you cannot see where you are going without looking back to see from whence in the murk you emerged. It is high time he came to the table on this debate and took his place as the debate grandmaster. His waffling is derailing his moral authority and is getting close to sidelining him from the debate we will inevitably have on the subject. Not only is it time to cleanse ourselves of the stains of the last 8 years, the subject is just too juicy for the Congressional majority to allow it to die a quiet death. We need President Obama’s leadership on this issue, otherwise the debate will happen on someone else’s watch and he will have marginalized his presidency.

We never even seem to get the process of having these debates right. Historically, we always seem to shy away initially from the need to have the debate and find excuse after excuse after excuse not to have them, only to finally do so at an inconvenient future time when the effect of the debate’s findings that we were in error is to cause little more than a yawn. If we are going to learn from history, we need to do so promptly after the complained of acts are finished. We did so after World War II and we actually remembered those lessons for a long time – until uneducated men became President and Vice President.

I suspect the politicians really know that we need these debates sooner than later, but would probably argue that they are doing us a favor by their present-day obfuscations because we need time to let the hotheads calm down. Only an idiot would believe in the appropriateness of that argument. Or, as my sainted Grandmother used to say: “That has a face only a mother could love!”

In the words of Mark Twain: “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

Or, if you prefer, consider this from Will Rogers: “If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”

As funny as Will’s question is on first reading, there is an easy answer to his question: it won’t. It is high time to try the real thing. Let’s debate openly and honestly, and then let’s apply whatever we learn from the debate and let the chips fall where they may.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved

Well I don’t mean to be complainin’ Lord
You’ve always seen me through
And I know you got your reasons
For each and every thing you do
But tonight outside my window
There’s a lonesome mournful sound
And I just can’t keep from thinkin’
‘Bout the ones the wolves pull down

Stephanie Davis, Wolves, as heard on Gretchen Peters and Tom Russell, One to the Heart, One to the Head

This is a tough time for charities that serve those in need, with the demand for their services substantially increasing while their funding sources significantly dwindle. This double whammy leaves many charities breathless from worry about how to serve the increased population of clients with fewer resources. There is nothing worse for such a charity than having to turn away those in need of their services due to insufficient resources. No one wants to have to decide who gets help and who does not, especially when the needs of prospective clients are generally indistinguishable. I know this first hand from my service on our local bar foundation board.

I have long felt that charities have a tendency to go to the same well too often when they seek funding, demonstrating a general inability to think out of the box when it comes to developing new funding sources. While I understand that it is easier to call upon those who have already demonstrated with cash or gifts that they approve of your cause, charities need to continually find new sources or risk poisoning the very well that serves them. I will continue to urge this concept upon any charity to which I give my time or money, since I firmly believe it is a matter of fundamental long term survival that each charity actively pursue such a plan of action.

However, in these times it is also incumbent upon those of us with incomes and financial reserves to consider increased contributions to our favorite charities, even if we have given substantially in the past, even if we are weary from the effort, and even if we are worth less than we used to be on an absolute basis. I base this on the theory that all wealth is relative. Even if, on an absolute basis, I am currently poorer than I was a year ago due to a decline in my stock portfolio, my relative net worth is now greater vis-a-vis the many who have lost jobs and spent their savings trying to survive. As a result, I am ironically now wealthier on a comparative basis than I used to be – even though my net worth has declined.

We all worry about the value of our savings declining. It is axiomatic that the amount of your debt will stay fixed while the value of your assets will fluctuate. In good times, this seems like a good thing to us, while in bad times our sense of insecurity increases as the debt becomes an increasingly large percentage of our net worth. But for those of us with a positive net worth, it is also true that we are now relatively more wealthy than those who have lost jobs and savings. We have to learn to think past our insecurities to come to this realization in order to think about the additional societal obligations we thereby inherit.

Of course such a result isn’t universally true, especially for those of us who borrowed lavishly against assets in the booming economy and now find our debt too big to service. But, for many of us, it is true that we are better off now than before when compared to the bulk of the population even though, in an absolute sense, we are poorer.

Those of us in this unusual position need to adjust our thinking and our emotional response quickly if we care about others. The fact is we can – and should – give more to our favorite service charities even as we feel less rich, if for no other reason than it is in our own selfish interest to do what we can to keep others productive, hopeful, and economically viable. This economy will recover more quickly if others remain productive than if the number of those on unemployment continues to skyrocket. Those who can retain the security of their own homes will add far more to the economy as it slowly recovers than those rendered homeless by the recession. And, given the fact that we are starting from a positive, not a negative, position, those of us in this unusual posture will likely only increase the gap between our wealth and that of others as the economy gets stronger.

I offer these thoughts somewhat reluctantly since, in my book, the need to assist others should come from the heart and not from the head. However, if you need this sort of analysis to encourage your giving, please take it to heart and use it to do good.

My experience tells me that many are still giving, albeit more timidly than before. Our local legal foundation’s recent breakfast took in less than usual and I am highly suspicious that the average gift among those who gave was down when compared to past years. We do not yet have the necessary analysis to ascertain the truth of my suspicion, so I cannot yet assert it as a truth.

What I can assert, however, is that those of us on the positive side of the ledger need, especially now more than ever, to remember those on the negative side and to do whatever we can to assist them.

It is also a good time for any service charity to take a good, hard look at itself and to shed any unnecessary programs and heft. Because of their nature, many charities try to be all things to all people within the general scope of their area of service and forget to keep their service focus laser tight. Charities are also generally guilty of failing to work in unison so that they can husband scarce resources. I believe that there is a somewhat selfish nature to the doing of good works – the part that says that my program or scheme is better or more effective than yours and I will prove it by raising more funds than you. While not every charity is guilty of this kind of thinking, some are. Even more to the point, most charities are guilty of spending more time trying to figure out how to get a greater share of scarce resources for themselves than trying to figure out how to work cooperatively with those in the same service space to make those same scarce resources go further.

I have learned from experience that you can profit from adversity by learning something new about yourself or others, and that you might as well seek to profit in that manner since adversity is not a fun experience by definition. In other words, seek to learn from adversity or risk suffering a totally worthless experience. On behalf of my own service charity of choice, I pledge to you that I will do everything within my power to learn and implement the appropriate lessons so that we will be leaner, meaner and stronger going forward.

In the meantime, can we please have a little more of your cash as well as a good portion of your time? I promise that we will put it to very good use and that you will feel better for having enjoyed the privilege of giving.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved

“This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. As the same causes are continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately impart an irresistible impulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance specimen of his countrymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and, above all, of innovation. The same bent is manifest in all that he does; he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations; he bears it with him in the depths of the backwoods, as well as in the business of the city.”

Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America

I find myself greatly perplexed by the current level of doom and gloom in our country. In so saying, I am not admitting to a level of idiocy beyond the reader’s ken, since I fully understand that these times are, indeed, truly and deeply troubled. In fact, these tiimes are more ominous than anything I have seen in almost 40 years of legal practice, and this recession is strikingly different from the three or four previous ones that I have weathered. And, the quintessence of their difference is the depth and volume of doom and gloom abroad in the land.

My perplexity stems from the disconnect between what I have always been taught about the unquenchable nature of the American spirit and the unmeasurable depths of the slough of despond in which many of our economic leaders seem to find themselves trapped. I have always been taught – and I firmly believe – that the American spirit is highly resilient. Not only do I believe that it is highly resilient, but I also firmly believe that it will rebound and eventually triumph.

As trite as that picture may seem to some, it has amounted to a capital “T” Truth during my lifetime. Take our previous national slough of despond which has become universally known by the simple sobriquet of “9/11”. As I said to many friends in the weeks following that beautiful late Summer day, it was as if a great greasy pall hung over the United States, the source of which were the smoke plumes we could see rising through the New York City sky in the days following. While the image of the smoke plumes was more potent when seen in person, it was nearly as mesmerizing on a television screen. While the pall lasted, it was an almost physical presence in our lives.

And then it was gone and life returned to an approximation of the past.

The American spirit rebounded after 9/11 despite an administration that tried to use it to instill fear as a means of ordering our life. The American spirit rebounded after the Great Depression and World War II, and that experience yielded a deeply talented generation of men and women who began the long period of growth we enjoyed throughout the last century. The American spirit rebounded after the Vietnam War despite its questionable morality, lack of focus and goals, and the despair and anxiety it unleashed on my own generation.

Other examples of the dominance of the American spirit are easy to find, but it is not my purpose to list them all. I simply wonder where, within the confines of our economic leadership, the wisps that remain to them of our American spirit may be hiding. It certainly isn’t evident in any of their doings or speeches. It isn’t evident in their faces. In fact, their slumped shoulders and dour expressions evidence anything but the American spirit. They have forgotten who they are and, more importantly, they have forgotten where they live.

Seen from a great height, it is apparent that the United States is currently mired in nothing more than one of the “frequent vicissitudes of fortune” that de Tocqueville sees as the crucible of our national spirit. It will end. While being caught in a vortex of bad news and economic pain is not a lot of fun on a daily basis, similar past experiences have always proved instructive to the national spirit. Americans long ago learned that while bad times are not enjoyable, we can still profit from them by taking to heart a good lesson hard earned. Americans have always had the knack of turning a period of despair or pain into the beginnings of a period of sustained benefit. The trick is to find the hard lesson at the core of the problem, to learn from it, to execute the changes necessary to move on, and to get on with life.

But to find the hard lesson and begin the learning and healing process, one has to search for meaning instead of spending his or her day wallowing in the pain of the moment. A massive communal wringing of hands is not conducive to learning; wallowing in woe is a waste. Most of our economic leaders are having a good wallow. Not only is the wallowing almost universal, but the current crop of executives would much rather return to the past and learn nothing from the present, apparently unappreciative of the opportunity that the present dilemma gives us.

Yes, I did say “opportunity”. We have a wonderful opportunity to: recognize that no regulation is just as bad as over regulation, and to realize that the mid-point of a pendulum swing is better than either extreme; wean ourselves away from foreign oil and to develop native energy sources that will allow us to be truly independent and in control of our own destiny; abandon a health care system that is the most expensive in the world yet leaves far too many of our fellow citizens without any health care whatsoever; learn the goals to be sought during the next century and begin the hard work of attaining them.

And if that isn’t enough of a list of opportunities, think longer than the next century. Dream big dreams! Dream of manned spaceflight to another planet – it is not only a possibility but it may be the only real salvation of a species living on an overworked and depleted planet. Dream of unmanned spaceflight to other galaxies and eventual colony ships to the planets found by that unmanned exploration.

In other words, remember de Tocqueville’s observation that the core of our character is innovation. What we had doesn’t work any more. That flivver is broken down in the middle of a dusty road. Get up, grab a wrench and fix it. Get in the damned thing and drive it to the next available auto shop, take it inside, reinvent it, and drive out in whatever your imagination has allowed you to create. Some of the by-products will be duds, providing humor and honing our ability to laugh at ourselves. But some of the by-products will be things of beauty. They will be this generation’s version of the plane piloted by Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kittyhawk.

But to get there, the wallowing of our economic leadership must stop and the learning must begin. We need to recognize that while we may be sitting in the middle of a train wreck, we are alive amid the wreckage. Things could be worse – and they will be if the wallowing continues.

In short – as my grandmother was fond of telling me when I was in despair over some youthful crisis or other – get over it. I no longer remember any of the crises that caused her to speak her piece; I only remember her words. She almost always followed “get over it” with “get on with it.”

It was good advice then, and it is good advice now.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved

“Simply put, to get to the heart of this country, one must examine its racial soul. Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been, and I believe we continue to be, in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”

Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States, February 18, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent speech on Black History Month has been vilified by many for his use of the term “cowards” in describing the average American when it comes to the discussion of race and its place in our society. The published reactions to his speech are interesting, since almost every commentator has seemingly taken the comment personally – as if Mr. Holder aimed the comment at everyone but himself. In fact, he included himself within the scope of the complaint when he said “we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”

Our society has changed greatly from the one in which I grew up; the one where stereotypes of all kinds were commonplace and where epithets and insulting terms were routinely used to describe any group one couldn’t comprehend. We have arrived at a point in the maturation of our society where most of us understand that using epithets to describe others who are different is not acceptable behavior. We understand that we are to be civilized to one another. We don’t, however, understand that we need to look past apparent differences in order to understand our common humanity. We simply haven’t been taught how to engage in the kind of conversation Mr. Holder is urging in his voluntarily assumed role as public provocateur.

While I am pleased that we have made progress to the point where epithets are no longer de rigueur in our society, I have to agree with Attorney General Holder that civil politeness is not nearly enough. We all have much to learn from one another and can only do so if we engage in constructive dialogue. I can remember many years ago in college when I asked a black friend from the South whether things were truly as bad as portrayed in the newspapers of the time. When she got through examining me to see if I was sincere in my question, she told me stories about her family’s upbringing in the South that were truly eye-opening. I had begun the conversation with a naive wish to disbelieve that mankind could be so cruel to itself, and was quickly disabused of my wish. Through her stories, she enabled me to look anew upon the world with fresh eyes. She made me realize that I had to engage reality, not hide from it. If we hadn’t had our conversation, I would not have come to this conclusion so quickly or, perhaps, at all.

I have seen this sort of behavior in person. My youngest son is hearing impaired – not deaf, but hearing impaired. As such, he inhabits a narrow world of those who are neither fully hearing nor fully deaf – in short, he is neither fish nor fowl. When he was in grade school and high school, the other children were unfailingly careful not to call him names or to classify him in any unkind way. They had learned at home that name calling was unacceptable, and their teachers enforced this rule. However, no one – students or teachers alike – ever voluntarily engaged him with respect to his differences and what those differences might mean to him. They never sought to learn from him what his differences might mean to them. They were either too frightened to inquire or too clueless to care.

More importantly, apart from the occasional unusual teacher or staff member the school never really reached out to include my son in its society – while he was with them, he was not of them. The loneliness this engendered in him was as hard for a parent to tolerate as it was for my son to endure. It still bothers me greatly even though he has now found, years later, societies in which he is accepted without qualification. I can only imagine the added pain he might have suffered if epithets had still been the rule of the day.

To give my son the credit he deserves, he tried to engage others about the issue while in school. In high school, he used to start each new class by standing to explain his hearing difficulty and letting his classmates know what they could do to help him in the classroom. I am proud of him for taking what was, for him, a very courageous step, but am deeply disappointed that no one – teachers and students alike – ever made his speech the beginning of a deeper discussion about human differences and what they might mean in the grander scheme of things. I reserve my greatest disappointment for his teachers, since they missed an outstanding opportunity to learn and to teach. Apparently, it was easier for everyone to listen, to stay silent, to quietly mark him as the kid with the hearing aides, and to move on to other, safer topics.

It is this innate inability to meet differences head on about which Mr. Holder is speaking. We are cowards when it comes to our differences. We don’t really want to know what it is like to live in someone else’s shoes or skin. Some of us are afraid that the other person will not want to speak about it or that we might offend; others are simply indifferent. Frankly, I find it easier to forgive the indifference as a by-product of a poor education or of a defective mind, than I do to forgive those more intelligent for overlooking the elephant in the room. As Mr. Holder says, for a person with an intelligent, inquiring mind to ignore the elephant, is simply cowardice.

I have always found that listening to others is the best way to learn. However, in order to listen, you must usually prime the pump to let others know that you care about their stories. Listening begins by first earning a basic level of trust and then by asking the few simple questions that let others know that you care enough to risk the asking. Only then will people begin to tell you about matters which are extraordinarily personal.

In other words, you have to first risk getting to know those different from you in some personal way which is typically beyond the limits of your personal comfort zone. Most of us will not take this risk. Some of us will do so sporadically, finding it easier to do so with some groups and not with others. Yet, whenever we do risk these kinds of conversations and acquaintances, we always learn something new about others and about ourselves. We are always enriched.

And, still, we hesitate.

It is our shared proclivity to hesitate that Mr. Holder was admonishing. The hesitation is the manifestation of our innate cowardice to deal with others who are different from us. As I have said elsewhere, I believe we, as a species, are genetically hard-wired to engage in this form of fight-or-flight hesitation when encountering something or someone new. This form of hesitation is peculiarly selfish as it is nothing more than a manifestation of our instinct for self-preservation. It is akin to the reaction of a cat to a sudden movement it does not understand. However, if we, as a species, are to continue to mature, society must recognize this hesitation for what it is and teach our children to blow right past it.

I see some hope that we are doing so, even if the process is not nearly as advanced as one might wish. I have been tutoring a group of college students in recent weeks and have been amazed at the diversity within the group and their seeming indifference to it. They treat one another as equals without the careful pussyfooting of my generation around the subject.

Perhaps it is Mr. Holder’s and my misfortune to simply be too old to have been able to enjoy this kind of mutual acceptance. It is equally possible, however, that while the students mix well, they aren’t asking the questions that lead to real mutual enlightenment and understanding. Maybe they are just civil and tolerant without being interested in the life stories of others. I don’t really know, and it occurs to me as I write this that I should try to find out. I think I have a topic for discussion with my youngest son – he has always been game to face these issues and hopefully he will read this and take up the discussion with me.

I congratulate Mr. Holder for having the courage to become a public provocateur on the subject of racial differences. To those who are accusing him of playing on white guilt or who are reaching other extraordinary conclusions, try actually listening to his remarks as I did. Don’t react to a summary prepared by someone else, go to the source – go here, for example, and listen for yourself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rinku-sen/it-takes-a-nation-of-cowa_b_168276.html–

Trust me – Mr. Holder’s remarks aren’t that scary, especially when you come to realize that he is accusing himself of the same cowardice, the same hesitation, that each of us often feels. It took courage for Mr. Holder to admit his hesitation in public; it takes an equal, if not greater, amount of courage for each of us to move past our own hesitation in our private relationships and conversations.

Thanks for poking the elephant, Mr. Holder. Now that we have his attention, maybe we can find out what he has to say.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved

While patience can be a virtue, it certainly hasn’t served me well these last two weeks as I have watched, waited and wondered at what our new President might do next. While it seemed for a time that he was off to a running start, he has reminded me more of an athlete in full forward motion who isn’t totally in control of his balance. There were more than a few stumbles, even if his motion was generally in the right direction.

Our new President’s biggest problem was his suffering from an acute case of the Old Pol Syndrome. He began by leaning heavily on Old Pols for his more senior positions, even while making some seemingly great choices of relative unknowns for lesser positions. When you combine that with either a poor vetting of backgrounds or a temptation to risk sending forth a nomination in light of the poor results of a thorough background check, he brought his overall grade down significantly from where it might have been.

I can certainly understand the temptation to bring in a Tom Daschle to fix something as complicated and controversial as health care. The politics involved are significant and Daschle is, if nothing else, a consummate politician. However, he can’t be the only experienced politician who can do the job, and putting him forward after he had to pay a whopping $140,000 in unpaid taxes was unnecessary Presidential risk taking. To have had to pay tax in that amount, Mr. Daschle had to fail to report income in the $400,000 to $500,000 range. That simply cannot amount to an oversight – at least it doesn’t in the minds of those of us in the middle class who put so much faith into the Obama campaign.

When you combine the Daschle problem with those of his other appointments who also suffered from tax problems, you have to assume that someone in the administration believes that not paying taxes, while naughty, is not a bar to higher office. What happened to the Mr. Clean image that our new President was trying to create from Day One? Someone goofed and, in the final analysis, that someone had to be the President, since I simply cannot believe that he was unaware of the relevant information prior to making the appointments in question.

My father always told me that life was really quite simple – if you did the right thing morally, you would generally succeed. He also taught me that if your gut hints to you that a decision you are about to take is questionable, either don’t take the action or think again and fix matters prior to proceeding. While my father was never President of these United States, nor will I ever be, it simply has to be true that greatness as a President includes the ability to stick to these homespun truths even in the midst of the greatest temptation to abandon them. All major decisions have at their core a basic condition set of right and wrong, and the trick is to see through the complications and the compromises and to recognize these basics for what they are and to act accordingly.

I truly thought that President Obama was a believer in the basics, but I worry that he may have caught Potomac Fever even prior to his inauguration. On the other hand, his choice of Steven Chu for Energy Secretary seems to have been remarkable, even if Mr. Chu is, as yet, unproven with respect to his political skills. It will be interesting to watch how Mr Chu does in light of the Daschle debacle. Can this man without prior political experience effectively operate at the highest levels of government and become a force for change, or will he founder in the Washington DC muck and mire. For me, his appointment is the most interesting of all of President Obama’s choices to date. If he can come in and effectively run a large federal bureaucracy without prior political experience, it may well be an indication to future Presidents that the antidote to the Old Pol Syndrome lies in thinking outside of the usual Washington DC box. Only time will tell.

On other fronts, the President moved forward with seeming confidence in ways that were in accord with his promises. The administration seems to have got it right with respect to closing Guantanamo, stopping the military tribunals, changing our foreign policy tone, and learning to listen to foreign leaders instead of preaching to them in belittling tones. The administration seems to be hitting long balls as to foreign policy, while striking out in its appointments.

Accordingly, I can only give the President C+ for his first few weeks in office. It pains me to do so, since I had so hoped for a change from business as usual in Washington, but business as usual has, so far, been the routine. The Republicans have yet to learn the meaning of the term “Loyal Opposition”, the Democratic majority in Congress needs to learn the meaning of the infinitive “to listen”, and the President needs to show effective leadership by not appointing Old Pols just because they have cachet from rising above the usual Washington rank and file. In making further appointments to high office, the President needs to remember that the politics of Washington for the past two decades were not the politics of our best and brightest, but were, instead, the politics of mudslinging, yellow journalism and rampant, unchecked partisan mediocrity. If he is going to make appointments from among the participants of this untasty stew, he had best choose someone capable of throwing stones when stones are required.

I have not given up hope for this Administration, as these are early days and there are many encouraging signs amid the screw ups. If he can avoid the historical, lethal dependency that the institution of the White House usually has in recycling Old Pols, it may garner his Administration a much higher grade over the long haul of a four year term. To do so, the President needs to learn from his early mistakes and greatly improve the quality of his game. If the President is really who many of us think he is, the poor grade may well serve as a needed wake up call for him to return to the basics and not let Foggy Bottom obscure his view of his own moral standards. If so, maybe an early stumble can be turned into a valuable learning experience on the way to a high grade.

I remember with fondness the poor grades I received at the end of my first quarter in college. I entered college with a fair degree of arrogance, having served as my High School salutatorian and as a graduation speaker, only to find myself firmly enmeshed in solid C’s at the end of a lackluster first quarter. I say that I remember this with fondness, because I became truly disgusted with my performance and immediately realized that it was wholly up to me to improve if I wanted to succeed. To my great satisfaction I did significantly improve, but only because I first stumbled so badly.

I hope the President knows he has stumbled, can accept the humility of having failed the standards he set for himself, and will step up his game in future. I will continue to watch, grade and hold my breath along with the rest of those who really have hoped that one man can make a difference.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency’s sake.”

President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

I love words, especially well crafted words that set forth an idea with cadence and convincing clarity. I love the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I love the novels of William Faulkner and John Barth. I love the humor of H. L. Mencken and Walt Kelly. I collect the words of all of these people in the many books I have difficulty storing with the proper care which is their due.

I also love a great speech: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural speech in 1933; Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech delivered on the Washington DC mall; Edward R. Murrow’s broadcast on the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I am not certain where President Obama’s speech ranks with these, but I can say that it improves with each new listening due to its thread of logic, its common sense and the spirit with which it is imbued. I like it much better this morning after my third hearing than I did while it was being given live.

Notwithstanding my love of well crafted words, I am always far more impressed with the actions that people take than what they say they will do. Ultimately, my judgment of others is determined by what they do rather than what they say. Words are often used as smokescreens, especially by politicians; words are often the politician’s sleight of hand, used either to mask inaction and indecision or actively used as a form of misdirection. Especially when judging politicians, one must carefully measure their words against their actions to arrive at some measure of a politician’s true worth.

Yesterday’s rhetoric was profound. The new President’s inaugural speech promises much and reads well in text format. But more impressive to me is the fact that the new administration, within a matter of two or three hours from the moment of its inception, took its first baby steps in making good on President Obama’s promise quoted above. He refers in the above statement, of course, to our Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and his subsequent action shows him to be a man of his words as well as a man who is good with words. I am referring to his direction yesterday to government prosecutors to file motions with the Guantanamo military tribunals to halt their proceedings.

This action, coming as it did on his first day in office within mere hours of his taking the oath of office, is the strongest indication yet that President Obama may not be just another politician. It is too soon to know if he will earn and deserve the accolade of “statesman,” but it is not too soon to understand that he is a man with the courage of his convictions and that we might trust his word. During his campaign, he promised that he would act swiftly to end these trials and his actions yesterday speak far louder than the words with which he made that promise. Now, we can await the follow through with hope and the beginnings of belief.

It is clear to me that President Obama has a basic understanding of something I have labored hard to teach my sons and my mentees: trust is never conferred, it must be earned; and while it is always earned slowly, it can be lost quickly by means of a single mistake. President Obama said as much in his own way when he said: “In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” To be seen as a great nation by the rest of the world, we must first earn their trust.

One of the two great failings of the previous administration was its almost total dissipation, in 8 short years, of the trust which Americans had painstakingly earned from the rest of the world through the efforts of so many over the long generations of our forebears. President Obama’s election has given me the hope that perhaps not all of the world’s good will toward us has been squandered. His reception overseas in the Fall of last year gave hope that some reservoir of good will remained; that the world retained a nascent faith in our goodness and that trust in us might thereby be rekindled. If so, it will be by the actions of our new government and not by its words. Yesterday’s order to the government prosecutors may prove to be the initial spark of ignition.

The second great failing of the previous administration was to fall prey to the notion that basic values are disposable in the face of fear and attack. Tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear was a denial of the greatness of our nation; tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear sent a message to the world that our then-leaders had no sense of our history or the forces that caused so many immigrants from so many parts of the world to come together on our shores as one people – as Americans; tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear was an act of profound moral cowardice when measured against the teachings of our Bill of Rights.

By his action in issuing yesterday’s order on the Guantanamo military trials, President Obama announced to the world that he understands not only that the United States cannot be true unto itself while denying its basic values, but that it can only do so by always acting in complete accordance with the strictures contained within those values. He understands that a government cannot mouth ideals while simultaneously acting differently than their teachings would allow without causing serious, lasting damage to the nation’s heart and soul. He understands that the contribution made by our Founders to the concept of “civilization” – our magnificent Bill of Rights – means nothing if it is honored only in the easiest of times and is quickly cast aside at the first hint of difficulty.

The false patriots who populated the previous administration were not the only persons appalled and alarmed at the events of September 11, 2001, yet they acted as if theirs was the only right and true response. Their reaction was contrary to the spirit of 1776; the spirit that is imbued in our Bill of Rights. While it is right and proper to fight back when attacked, it is profoundly unpatriotic to do so with actions that are manifestly improper when measured against our most basic statement of values. To act in contravention of those values while wrapping yourself in the folds of the American flag is not only the worst form of hypocrisy, it is, most simply, unpatriotic.

So while I loved President Obama’s inaugural words, I was far more impressed with his actions. He could have waited until today or tomorrow to act without significant loss of face, but he didn’t do so. He sent the strongest possible message that America is reasserting its values by taking this action within the merest fraction of time from the moment when he actually became our 44th President.

And in that one small action is the seed for the restoration of our greatness on the world stage; in that one small action is the seed of the restoration of our self respect. If we can regain our self respect, we can once again look at life clearly and not through the fog of induced fear. We will then be able to see the world through our own eyes and not through clouded glasses, color-coded by governmental decree. We can, as President Obama adjured us to do, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the work of remaking America.

I would always prefer for us to fail while trying to do the right thing in accordance with the strictures of our values, than for us to seek the cocoon of safety while denying our birthright. The former is the true American spirit; the latter only dooms us to the dustbin of former nations. Only by constantly striving to do what is right can we proudly wear the title of “Americans.” Only by constantly striving to do what is right can we continue to meet the ongoing challenge of the standards created for us by our Founders.

I am proud that we are once again honoring our values. They have been too long missing from the decision making processes of our government, and their return to prominence in so short a time under the new administration is grounds for great celebration. Their return is cause for each of us to look forward in hope, instead of backwards in despair. This small action spoke more thunderously than President Obama’s own words, and it was most welcome.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved