February 22, 2006
Presidents
The other day on Presidents Day, an editorial in The Arizona Republic reminded us that, “As a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Jimmy Carter deserves the admiration of all Americans, regardless of political affiliation.
“Most retired politicians pursue leisure activities or the accumulation of wealth. After leaving the White House, Jimmy Carter formed the Carter Center, and he has devoted all of the moneymaking potential of being a former president to the eradication of disease in Africa, spreading democratic values around the world, and raising public awareness of mental-health issues.”
In his new book, “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis,” Carter wrote for his lead, “Americans cherish the greatness of our homeland, but many do not realize how extensive and profound are the transformations that are now taking place in our nation’s basic moral values, public discourse, and political philosophy.”
The book is about his biblical faith and morals, the same sort of things Martin Luther King preached about. It is sad but no wonder that he has been much maligned of late and even called “clueless and classless.” We usually treat the prophets a lot worse, but then very few of them have ever been president of the United States.
Only Washington and Lincoln “made the cut” to get remembered on Presidents Day. Two hits out of forty-three times at the plate is not much of a batting average, but it does show a more impressive and less spotty sense of judgment than has our body politic the last few times around.
There’s a creeping unisex bubba mentality in our land, one possible result of our downhill slide in public education and, as President Carter said, “the transformations that are now taking place in our nation’s basic moral values, public discourse, and political philosophy.” All this makes the candidates we choose not only no surprise, but inevitable. Washington and Lincoln were hardly “C” students.
A cyber friend has for her e-mail signature, “Our poor show us who we are. Our prophets show us who we can be. So, we hide our poor and kill our prophets.” We seem often to forget who we are and certainly who our Founders thought we can be, but seem merely to settle for who we think we are and even that in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
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