What Hope Is Made Of
Today on the NBC’s Meet the Press show, Tim Russet interviewed Barack Obama. One more time the viewers needed to waste precious time rehashing the Rev Jeremiah Wright non-issue. Although this time for only about 20 minutes out of the approximate 50 minutes of interview time was wasted. The wastefulness of these questions became really clear when finally Russet ask a question about the “summer holiday from gas taxes”. Obama’s answer spoke volumes about the uniqueness of Obama.
In measured tones, Obama dissected the proposals by McCain and Clinton to discontinue the federal gasoline tax for the summer months, as a means of helping middle class Americans. Obama proceeded to put into perspective how much savings was available per average American (30 cents per day) and that there was no guarentee that gasoline prices would not mysteriously rise to shallow up the entire 14 cents reduction. Obama continued to point out that without an offsetting tax that the federal roads projects would go unfunded and more Americans could be put out of work.
On a different subject, Obama carefully avoided getting committed to a “bomb Iran” policy before he was President. Hillary Clinton’s recent pledge to bomb Iran if they bombed Israel played well with AIPAC and other Israel supporters but is hardly the rhetoric conducive to bringing success to the current nuclear weapons negotiations with Iran. Obama showed enormous wisdom in picking this course.
From their public speeches, there should be no doubt that John McCain and Hillary Clinton are not going to take crap from anyone or any foreign country. They talk tough and certainly give the impression of being tough. Barack Obama is a different story. He seems reasonable and maybe even “nice”. The next President will need to be both “tough” and “nice”, and in addition, he or she will need to be “smart” with complicated issues, and be politically courageous to use brains instead of rhetoric. I hope the Democratic candidate can possess this balance, and I really hope Obama gets the chance to show us he has the total gift.
