Politics

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright has caused a political problem for Barack Obama that is surprisingly not centered on race, radical religiosity, or strident anti-Americanism. Nor is the problem their 20-year relationship or the possibility that Senator Obama secretly harbors the same politics as his pastor.

A preacher's profession is defined by words. Through his sermons he argues a specific morality, advocating a better life for his congregants through the precepts he promotes . His words, being the only tools of his trade, truly matter.

Politicians, like preachers, are defined by what they say. They reach for the right language to make moral and civic precepts acceptable to their audiences. Using words, they reason, promise and persuade. Failing to win support for their positions by those means alone, they cajole, intimidate, and threaten. If they are really good they need only inspire and uplift.

Having made the point that words matter in politics, Senator Obama cannot now tell us that what he says is of consequence while what his preacher says is not. When the man is the message and the message is the man, there is no difference between the preacher and the politician.

That is the problem Reverend Wright poses for Senator Obama.

The funniest thing came through my radio the other day. It shouldn't have been funny; every President since Truman has done it, and I should have expected it. Nonetheless I laughed indeed when I heard mention of the "George W. Bush Presidential Library."

Immediately I had a vision of Derek Zoolander and his Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good. Given all the materials that the GWB people will call "classified files which must be hidden to preserve the people of this good nation and to keep them safe from the evildoers," I wondered what small sample of memoribilia and documentation will researchers and guests find in the Bush Presidential Library.

Below are a scant few of the small number of items I expect to be on display or otherwise available to the public.

Captain America, published by Marvel Comics, issues 1-current (bet that Steve Rogers would've found Osama by now)
Flight Suit and Banner with "Mission Accomplished."
Handwritten Letter from GWB to Mike Brown, Dir. of FEMA, dated August 3, 2005. "My Dearest Brownie,..."
The Texas Chainsaw used to massacre Crawford brush.

While it is this man's personal prerogative to establish the library, I wonder how much about the Bush Presidency we will learn that we don't already know. Given that the administration has hidden and deleted as much as possible during his tenure in the Oval Office, we probably already know as much as we ever will. What we do know is probably not worth enshrining and re-visiting. I suspect the whole thing will amount to little more than a sanitized retrospective of a legacy unworthy of commemoration.

I recognize that as a Republican I am supposed to fawn over the man, this great "Compassionate Conservative." However, I am one of those pesky--but true--Conservatives who cannot stand the way GWB expanded the scope and size of the federal government, waged an unnecessary foreign war at great cost in blood and treasure, and willfully circumvented Constitutional limits meant to constrain the elected agents of a tyranny of the majority.

At least I can laugh at the irony.

Bruce Chapman of Seattle's Discovery Institute has penned a nice overview of the primary process (both Democratic and Republican) in Washington State. I recommend it for all of you who may be interested in what's going on here.

As for the Potomac Primary tomorrow, I foresee a Huckabee win in Virginia (the sizeable military vote for McCain notwithstanding) and more than a few of the proportional delegates from Maryland going his way. DC belongs to Senator McCain't-Yet-Close-the-Deal.