The West Wind is Rhetoric

“He’s an Arab,” she said of Obama.  And poor Senator John McCain quickly took away the microphone, shaking his head.

Senator McCain then did exactly what he needed to do: he described Obama as a decent man with whom he had drastically different opinions.  Sadder still, the Republican crowd booed his remarks.

In my last post, I wrote, that “this much seems certain: in language lies consequence, our wills, our selves.”  By this I meant that when we are confronted with the responses to our words, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Some months ago, Obama promised a campaign free of negative campaigning.  Too short-lived was this promise: just last week he presented a website and 13 minute video linking McCain to the infamous Charles Keating savings and loan scandal.  His rhetoric is increasingly negative—that he keeps most of it off of his main website does not mitigate it.

When will Obama face the delusional voter on camera, also full of ignorance and hate?

Yes, yes, I know the story.  Voters across the country decry the negative ads and call for issues.  And I know that campaign strategists clearly see that polls and votes are swayed by mudslinging anyway.  Voters say one thing but are moved by another.  But I’m not talking about persuasion here; any rhetorician or ad writer can move crowds.

I guess I’m talking about conscience.  Do we want our end results because we’ve won people with our sincere ideas or do we want it because we’ve deluded them, played to their ignorance, made them hate?

Whatever we believe of our next president, we must also believe that he (and his running mate) moved some votes by manipulation over idea, by compromising ethics in order to achieve power, by consciously working to polarize honest debate into something duplicitous.

I, for one, was glad to see McCain take away that microphone and—to me—he appeared honestly regretful.  The political machine will do terrible things to honest men and women who seek office.  In the end, after the election, those politicians must still face themselves as moral humans.  They must exert their wills, write themselves.

No, I’m not naïve about how politicians work, about power and ambition.  And I’m not so innocent as to believe that some politicians see their mirrored reflections each day without a moment of concern.  But that is where this consequence is tragic, where it creates an ugly America.

Voters are moved this election season, and they can be motivated by ideas or they can be pushed to thoughtless words and ignorant action by prejudice and hate. Let both our candidates face what they’ve wrought.