Note: The following observations were sent to us by Matt Tardif. I’m glad to know that there’s at least one other person out there that isn’t buying Barack Obama’s siren song…
I agree that Barack Obama gives great speeches and is acclaimed as a master orator. We all love a good story. I use them to put my daughter to sleep at night, an effort to lull her into a comfortable sense of security, the main goal is peace to ensure healthy rest and sweet dreams for her. America has just been tucked in by Senator Obama. In eighteen months we’ll wake up screaming, kicking the covers off our proverbial bed, wiping sweat and tears from our face and wondering who changed the ending to our tale. Maybe I should read her a bedtime story about a man who heard a red phone ring at 3am, and answered it by saying ‘waaaaaaz up?’
My intent is not to endorse John McCain here, but only to put out the things America doesn’t need. We don’t need hope. I like many Americans open my eyes each day full of hope. The same goes true when I go to bed at night. I am hopeful about every aspect in my life, the Nation and the world. No President is ever going to bring hope to us! It isn’t in the job description. I am sorry for the brutal honesty, but largely the President is the steward for the direction of our great Country, but in essence that stewardship is ultimately in the will of its people.
America does not need inspiration. Inspiration comes from an infinite well of sources. It can come from passion related to work, family, church/religion, finding valuable purpose, attaining goals and fulfilling individual visions/dreams.
America doesn’t need diplomacy with dictators and our sworn enemies. When was the last time a schoolyard bully listened to the voice of reason through compassionate dialogue? Has any counselor/psychologist really shown someone the way by sitting them down and encouraging them to a peaceful solution? Playground justice usually happens when the individual being bullied retaliates with significant enough force to warrant utter respect and attention that they are left alone, or quite often the larger playground group responds in solidarity and gives the bully a good butt kick! This is the way of the world. We cannot gloss this over and put a big smiley face on it. Evil is ugly and should be treated exactly the way it deserves to be treated.
America doesn’t need hip. If we needed hip we’d see John McCain wearing an Ipod and grooving to Duke Ellington. I consider myself to be a pretty cool guy, but I don’t want to see the President coming towards me and feel comfortable enough to extend my clenched fist and meet him with a knuckle punch. I either want to salute him/her, stand firm and extend my hand to convey my respect, while looking them in the eye with complete admiration.
America doesn’t need to end ‘the politics of fear’. In my view fear is an incredible motivator. We went eight years with Bill Clinton being unafraid of terrorists and dictators. On Sept. 11th, 2001 we saw what fearless people are capable of. If I wasn’t afraid of losing my job I would show up when I felt like it, give minimal effort, never listen to my boss and spend the day wasting my employer’s resources. I want the President to fear all day and all night. I want them to be terrified, but not terrorized. I want fear to translate into action. I want them to scream at the congress, their cabinet members and keep every responsible member of our Government focused and intent on the goals and objectives of our nation.
America doesn’t need an ‘entrepreneur’ and a Washington outsider. Newsflash: Once you move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue… you’re an ‘insider’. Once you get the Democratic nomination… your ‘inside’. Once you started using Washington consultants, media strategists and conferring with Washington elected officials… you were ‘inside’. This Country isn’t just a flashy new concept like Facebook, Ebay, Craigslist, Google, Skype or iTunes that will gain popularity and be sold for a few billion dollars and make someone wildly wealthy. Our country is like Berkshire Hathaway and it needs someone who has the connections to provide insight about situations financial, militaristic, domestic and policy related. Would you replace Warren Buffet with Barack Obama and expect the same results? Fixing parking tickets in Chicago two-years ago doesn’t fit the skill set for a President in my estimation. Although I do think that Barack Obama will make a great contestant on Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump interrogating him in the boardroom at the end.
America doesn’t need confidence. I can tell you countless stories of confident Harvard and Yale graduates who take high paying jobs on Wall Street after receiving their MBA’s. They fall flat on their faces and fail miserably within the first few months at work. These are accomplished people that have worked hard to get high scores, they present themselves incredibly well, use big words like essential and intuitive, but they have no real world perceptiveness (sorry for the big word). They can read a book about what a train wreck looks like, smells like feels like and tastes like, but when the car stalls on the tracks they sit there and keep turning the ignition over and over and over with hope the car will start. Shortly before the train hits them, they will text message a friend and ask them to google search ‘what to do when stuck on train tracks?’
We need leaders who will put the car in neutral and push it off the track themselves. America needs courage in the White House. We need decisiveness and conviction. We don’t need analysis paralysis, chronic assessment and over assumptions.
We need assertiveness and an innate ability to make judgments based on wisdom, intellect and concrete points of reference through life experience.
America doesn’t need shiny happy people. We have plenty of those in Hollywood, in the trendy urban neighborhoods on both coasts and in the fluffy collegiate campus environments abundantly spread throughout the Nation. We don’t need rhetoric and inflated self-assuredness that comes from wealth and privilege. We need a sober President that is full of humility and can identify with the pain of others from having endured it them self. We need someone who can give us the ‘Straight Talk’ (sorry for the McCain plug) and tell us the long and short of things in a clear concise manner, without intense ideology and theoretical doublespeak.
America doesn’t need a unique individual for President. We need a President that possesses a common bond with the majority and can convey this without legislation, but through entrusting the citizenry to create solutions through adaptation driven from necessity. We need a President that has faith in Private corporations and not Government regulation, taxation and manipulation.
America doesn’t need change for change sake. I love the concept of newness. It is great to buy a new car and get that smell again. Unfortunately lots of new cars come with all kinds of design flaws, engineering malfunctions, safety hazards and recall notices. Driving an older model means that its problems have been talked about, its features are widely documented, it’s easy to talk about with others who are familiar with it, you know what you’ll get and its essentials are visible. You can ascertain its viability, the parts are easy to find and its strength has been proven in a variety of environments. I do not want a President that appears like a Porsche and drives like a Yugo once it gets delivered. By the way—If you don’t know what a Yugo is maybe you should Google it! While you’re there you can Google Ross Perot, The Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Ronald Reagan, Ayatollah Khomeini, Madrid/London bombings, Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft held by China in 2001 and about fifty to one-hundred other significant events that have foreshadowed the future of the world in the last twenty years.
America is strong and is not weak! The world doesn’t hate us as a Nation, this is not to say they don’t want us to falter and fail. OPEC wants us to succeed, this way they c
an be assured of exponential wealth increases. Every International opponent wants an opportunity in the grand scheme to leverage themselves against us, although our strength can come through alliances.
We can easily retain our economic prowess, dominant position in world affairs and ensure the future viability of this great Nation. It takes approximately fifteen minutes to an hour to vote, but this right creates a legacy that extends many years forward. This election is pivotal and the results will impact each of us equivalently, not to mention that it will also impact the unborn.
Is America ready for John McCain? I think we need to get ready. The possibilities are exciting, and opportunities limitless. For him to be dismissed as a ‘Bush third term’ is exceptionally shallow and again demonstrates further that Barack Obama has succumbed to ‘inside’ Washington gutter politics. Barack perpetuates his own audacity with these types of statements. It’s audacious for him to be so self-assured that he can solve things simply by looking good, sounding good and exemplifying goodness by not voting for a war in Iraq. If you don’t do anything, you can’t do anything wrong. At the same time you can’t claim to be so insightful that you forecasted the ultimate result in Iraq. This is not over. Iraq is on our terms as a Nation. This is a dramatic test of our collective National will, relinquishing our control based on lives lost, sacrifices made, debts incurred and biased media publications is not a formula for withdrawal. Is the Democratic Party for real?
In the next six months we will find out how real this Nation really is, we will found out how serious we really are as a Nation. When George W. Bush stood at the World Trade Center rubble on Sept.13, 2001 and said ‘I can hear you, and the people that did this will soon hear all of us!’ for the first time in a very long time, what an American President said meant something. It wasn’t an extended finger pointing and lying to us about his actions in the oval office. The people who did that dastardly act have heard from us, they haven’t heard the last of us either. Hamas endorsed Barack Obama; do they know something that we don’t?
America doesn’t need it. America already has it. It’s for the world to come and take it away. Let’s not give it away. We don’t need to roll-over and have our belly rubbed. We need to keep barking, keep biting, and hold our turf. This is it. This election isn’t the feel good ‘yes we can’ chant that has been reverberating for the past year. This election should be the ‘Let’s keep going’ chant. Let’s keep going USA!
Matt is an active political observer and social commentator. He has been teaching for the last five years both Nationally and Internationally. He is currently a 6th Grade classroom teacher residing in Dedham, Massachusetts.