I am a bit puzzled why David Brooks overlooked Oddesius in his analysis of the qualities, which he suggests might be prerequisites for the next President of the United States. Certainly Oddesius fits the bill on wile and guile; and, if one relishes a decided propensity for the darker view, our long-suffering traveler possesses an abundance of that potent elixir. Of course a category for the “Patience of Penelope” stands out as concomitant to the general indifference of Oddesius. Greek history or myth notwithstanding, the implication Brooks leaves with the headline to his column, “Next president might be more wily, less pure” is one that seems to suggest that the citizens of this country should accommodate a lower standard or expectation of the quality we seek and think is appropriate in the process of selecting our next president. It may be impertinent, but I thought a small majority of the voting populace had already done that for two successive presidential elections. If Lloyd Bentsen were still with us, he would have already uttered a resounding, Mr. President, you are no Oddessius, to the slightest notion that the current president bears any characteristic resemblance to that redoubtable Greek, and I would and do concur; however, there remains those inescapable issues of self-righteousness and self-absorption in identifying one’s exclusivity in the determination of right and wrong: the topsy-turvy orientation of Jesus’ phrase whoever is not against us is with us to the Bush mantra of whoever is not with us is against us –such a subtle turn of the phrase has had a devastating impact on the message of the itinerant fisherman who abhorred the violence of his own disciple used to defend him.
Bush is only part of the point of Brooks’ piece and as critical a role as his presidency has played in both the historic and contemporary assessment of our country, its shadow looms even larger as it has been the primary source for provisioning the current arid landscape upon which our future depends. Although Brooks quotes Reinhold Niebuhr to support his claim regarding the necessary qualities that the next president should possess, he leaves the impression that Niebuhr’s statement contained mutually exclusive terms in the symbols of the serpent and the dove. I concede that my world view is less glamorous and more parochial than Brooks’, however, Wisdom and Peace do not immediately spring to mind as embattled opposites. The suggestion Brooks leaves with his column is that we need a leader even more duplicitous than the one we have now; one who will select even more suspect subordinates to suborn even more effectively than those who are presently ensconced in this administration, and who, by growing degrees, face prosecution for the illegal and unregulated zeal in which they responded to expectations set from the top down by the executive branch. When I debunked the notion that there is any shred of comparison between Bush and Gary Cooper’s character Will Kane in High Noon, I didn’t expect to find a serious reference to a fictional character as an important calculus for determining present or future presidential candidates the very next day. The truth is all heroes have a dark side; and, Brooks is on point to mention the notions of light and dark, the profound perspective required to resolve their incompatibilities without destroying either: our existence is as tenuous as the paradox of that twin metaphor and equally dependent upon it.
So what should we seek/settle for in our next president? I like the promise contained in concluding lines of Emerson’s poem Give All To Love in which he enjoins our patience and certainty in discovering the threads out of which we will weave our future; as darkness and light stand in relation to one another so do our problems and their solutions.
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
