Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and when we find a heart indecisive and directionless we can further notice the mouth running on in every which way. We know that convictions are single-hearted things. They – regardless of rain, wind and savages – always point west where the great frontier of opportunity awaits. Convictions live within and find their way out in speeches.
Eloquence is a thing of training, a sense of poetry, the consequence of lifelong pursuits. Our president pursued oil rigs, baseball and business – and he speaks like it. Bush doesn't have to speak a lot, because we all know what he thinks, what he believes in and where he is headed next.
"The world is better off without the brutal dictator."
"As we stand up, they'll stand down."
"We will stay the course until the job is done."
"Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."
What else is there to know or say about Bush? He has set direction, he's committed, and in a time of war and dealing with a highly convulsive battlefield these are some excellent traits. He does not posses every excellent trait, but conviction and decisiveness are five-star fulfillments of any historian's reasonable wont. He's painfully transparent; what you see is what you get. Like a Texas garage sale, "Here it is. You don't lahk it? That's your problem, ah guess."
But consider this quote in contrast:
"I do not think it is a smart strategy, either, for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment. ... Nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain."
That's Hillary speaking, in a major public-policy speech, to a Democratic rally allegedly criticizing Bush regarding troop withdrawal in Iraq.
Let's get this straight.
It is bad to have an open-ended commitment (i.e., one with no withdrawal date).
It is bad to set a certain date. (i.e., the opposite of open-ended commitment).
She really is brilliant, isn't she? It's like being able to hold "tea" and "no tea" in the same hand. It's like the sound of one-hand clapping and other-than-one-hand clapping. How does she do it? We should all all be very impressed. (Pod people respond in monotone unison, "We Are All Very Impressed," heads nodding synchronously.)
The stultifying, non-cognitive rhetoric, along with the botoxed sense of charm, is just more than even wing nuts can endure for a whole campaign. Bill Clinton's mouth bespoke the convictionless, directionless, amoral heart that he owned. But he was able to use those anti-qualities to his advantage as a skilled player. His charisma, always informed by a sense he was very happy and stunned to have gotten on as far as he did, left the crowd buying into the same – rooting for the bozo from nowhere who, much to everyone's shock, had a credible shot of becoming president. Hilly, possessing all the vacuousness and none of the attraction, cannot calculate successfully to turn her cluelessness to advantage. It's too hard. Nor is she charmed and amazed to be on the podium – she's angry and unpleasant about it having taken so long.
She hasn't the foggiest. She's telling you. She has no obligation to be winsome because she's Hillary, and she deserves to be there. Open-ended commitments are wrong. Setting dates are wrong. This doesn't have to make sense because you have to vote for me. We Are All Very Impressed.
Always stubborn, the massive pieces of machinery do battle like bumper cars at the high levels of party politics and push aside the realization that Americans choose their president based on a sense of swashbuckling and character. Yet, it is a great predictor of success to observe that if an optimistic candidate stands for conservative Christian values (personal character strength, decency, single-mindedness, biblical morality), the field can be blown wide open. A strong peak can forgive a weak valley. But, thudding and crunching, the huge graders and bulldozers groan against one another trying to make the implausible into top ticket. The Democratic Party sets forth vapid people full of doublespeak and rigor mortis – Hillary, Kerry, Algore. Our fascination with the abomination grows and we laugh as we groan, whimsical as the postmoderns deconstruct themselves.
What could be better?
Hillary? You go girl.
Related special offer:
"I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words"
Andrew Longman is a Christian by confession and an applied scientist by trade.