The boy and the man/Obama and McCain

Last nights match up between Obama and McCain was a disaster for Obama. One thing only was blatantly obvious, Obama's immaturity. And, since the only remedy for that is the time-consuming task of growing up, his election hopes will, most likely, continue to diminish.

In fact, Obama is stunningly immature for his age, perhaps because he has inculcated himself within a particularly marginal post modern clique, whose primary emphasis is naval gazing. It has produced, in him, a peculiar contemporary type of indoctrination primarily responsible for catastrophic blind spots in his perspective, both theologically and politically.

For example, from last nights contest, when asked about a singular moral failure, Obama, agitatingly verbose, could only mention adolescent misdeeds. McCain, unhesitatingly, said, his failed marriage. The "boy's" response was superficial, it was all he had...his life experience and resulting self-sacrifice, negligible. McCain, on the other hand, spoke as an adult, having invested himself and lost in one of life's momentous committments; he could draw on the wisdom and humility such an experience inevitably engenders in the reflective soul.

Yesterday, while researching President George Washington's final hours, I discovered Martha's first words, when told of her husband's death..."Tis well, all is now over, I shall soon follow him, I have no more trials to pass through."

Trials, "I have no more trials to pass through," these are the words of one refined in fire, purified and humbled through the hard labor and travail of life, at once wholeheartedely accepted and lived, not on one's own terms, but, in humility and grace, on such terms as are given. Trials are the means to "character," yes, we all wish it were otherwise, but it isn't. Years of self-sacrificing investment in life, failures, rising again from the ashes and starting over, this, and this alone builds character, humility and wisdom.

Perhaps the most eerily unsettling example of the "boy" and the "man" last night was Obama's response to the question of evil. How should one respond to evil, appease, negotiate, contain or destroy?

Nowhere was the contrast more stark. He mentioned the horror in Darfur, then, immediately honed in on injustices in American streets, concluding with a self-flagellation of this country for not having sufficient humility; in so doing, he epitomized the utter shallowness of his "theology," and I use the term lightly!

McCain, unapologetically, went straight to the heart of Islamic terror and our moral duty to destroy it before it destroys civilization itself. He was able to hit the target with pinpoint accuracy--existential scars forever steadying his aim. Again, unavoidably, Obama lost the match.

Finally, Obama was asked to give an example of when he stood against the Democratic party to reach across the aisle. His answer disclosed a desperately juvenile attempt to distort reality. He recalled his collaboration, ironically, with McCain, to enact ethics reform. However, apparently this episode ended with Obama "chickening out," at the last minute to side with the democratic leadership! What?

One of my father's favorite poems was Rudyard Kipling's "If," he recited it effortlessly. Through the years, he encouraged his children to internalize its wisdom. Could it be Obama, as the product of affirmative action, is so enmeshed in what is owed to him, that he is incapable of enobling risk?

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings.

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew,

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

...Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son."

Rudyard Kipling