The Stature To Lead

Whenever I have the desire not only hear its sizzle as it hits the skillet, or to savor its flavor, and smell its familiar aroma, ... or even to see its greasy remainder in the suet can out back, ... I sometimes click C-Span on to see the gritty process of American Political Sausage Making at its best in our Congress. And so, this Friday afternoon, on a whim at reading in HuffingtonPost that there might be something there to be seen, I tuned in to the proceedings in the United States Senate.

At first I felt certain that HuffPo had it wrong, and that there would be no news here today ladies and gents, ... Move along, nothing to see! The Farm Subsidy Bill, with all its Christmas trimmings was birthing after what was described as a five year gestation. The Writer's Strike did not impact this event, which more resembled the Golden Globes of the Conglomerate Grain industry than anything else. A string of "I want to thanks ... " longer than a freight train in Illinois fell forth for an hour at the podia. People's names were entered into the record, with no greater claim to fame than that they had once again propped up a system long outdated, and misdirected, ... a system for using the land to do, and not to do things which would be the province of some market, open or otherwise, were it not for the fact that the pork this bill assures the constituents often includes, ... well, Pork! In the flesh.

And then in the next moment, a disheveled, slouching, aging man came to the podium and asked to be heard. The president recognized him, and allowed the Majority Leader of the Senate, ... "Senator Reid of Nevada", as opposed to the other Senator Reed from Wherever, ... to speak. At first there was a mumbling of sorts, ... as if he were reciting an ancient liturgy , " the third reading of S666 , ... and so it is placed on the table, ... " and then again, and then a comment, ... Amen. I move to bring forth S444 from the Committee of the Whole and the Parts, for the second reading, ... Amen!"

Then he spoke in an even more hushed but spontaneous way, (In a mumble, slouched, with hesitancy and reservation, ... paraphrased) " Next week I will do something I don't want to do, but feel I need to do, ... and withdraw my request to ... blah, blah, FISA, blah blah ... ". Is this confession? ... the Homily, ... Common Prayer, ... What? And so he had introduced the fact that he would again render to our Caesar what he demanded, ... a FISA bill that allowed federal criminals to run free after tapping, and continuing to tap our communications illegally.

And then began the liturgy once more, ... "S777, which protests Chinese monopolization of the shoelace aglet industry, etc. and for other purposes, ... Ah-Men!", ... and with little more fanfare, the acolyte mumbled that the Senatorial Services were ended (adjourned), and that all should go in peace or some such. Who would put this mumbling acolyte in charge of the benediction? What was this whimpering dismissal, ... certainly in place of the PooBah Maximum! But no, ... this was the "Majority Leader" of this august body. The Cardinal of this part of Congress, ... the leader of the most numerous among the gathered.

In a similar display of wavering only the day before, the High Priestess of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had pronounced that the "Republicans Like this War (in Iraq)". Then in a feint to acquiesce to her opponents, or was it real? ... she said that she should not have said that. It is a stratagem from childhood that we should not say that which we should not. It is a truth among adults that we should speak the truth. In neither childhood nor adulthood should one apologize for stating a fact. Yet there was Speaker of the House Pelosi, in essence apologizing for stating what is clearly the truth, unwilling either to place her weight behind her words, nor let them stand to be considered.

Among Progressive Democrats and among those of us with Independence in our affiliations, these shows of whimpering deference to the demands of the Right are perplexing. The experience Mrs Pelosi and Mr Reid brought to their respective offices should have steeled them for the road they each faced. The stature to lead is not given, but found in oneself. It is an admittedly rare quality. It is perhaps most doubted by those who possess it, for it is evident often only from a distance. It is never instilled by the wishes or demands of others. It emerges by providence only in the times when it is needed. As in the case of Winston Churchill, ... it is as quickly dismissed when that need has waned. It is, however, never forgotten.

We can not fault anyone for not being other than themselves, for failing to meet our expectations for their lives. And so we can not fault Mr Reid or Mrs Pelosi for failing to stand against the Regime of George Bush and the Fourth Reich. It seems they were ill-suited to defending the Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Magna Carta. The manipulation of our Justice system, the election system, and even the ownership of the media from whose glossy products we are supposed to remain abreast of our nation's news.

I believe we have every right, on the other hand, to question Reid and Pelosi why, at this time of most critical need in our Nation's History, they have decided to stand in the way of all those who see, as they must, that the hour for our Republic's recovery is growing late. How far we have come from the early days when a few men placed their names for all to read, in defiance of a man, King George, to say that they would not allow themselves or their neighbors to continue under his sort of government any longer. How very far backward we have come.

It is becoming clear that the two political parties we have come to depend upon have failed their respective constitutents, one no more and no less than the other in my estimation. It is even more clear that neither provides an option for leadership so long as the one always acquiesces to the other. What is needed at this juncture is leadership of such a stature that it can stand on its own merits, with the express purpose and intent to restore the American Republic NOW. No other agenda is more urgent. Without an abrupt restoration of the Constitution, our standing in the World, Civil Liberties and our Economy, it will little matter for whom we vote a year hence.