Fair fight

This week President Obama got out of D.C. and ventured back into the real world. At least as much as an American President can do anything that approaches reality. If I were president I would get one of those hooded sweatshirts and some glasses and maybe some fake teeth and go out every once in a while and hang out. Maybe sell knives door to door. But that's a different story.

He ventured to Indiana and Florida. No hooded sweatshirt or fake teeth. He was dressed as coolly as usual. He spoke to the people. He listened and answered a few questions. He even hugged a questioner who had broken into tears as she told of how she and her children were living in her car.

President Obama's motives for the excursion are being analyzed, lauded and criticized. Why would he be doing this right now? What's his motive? What is the angle?

The Republicans in the Senate voted almost unanimously against the economic stimulus bill. Three of them voted for it, making them the three most powerful people in the country right now. The Republicans motives are being analyzed, lauded and criticized. Why would they be doing such a thing? What is their motive? What is the angle?

I love politics. Those of us who sit in the stands have chosen folks to go and do the hard work of government for us. And then we love to jeer and boo. I am guilty of the search for unspoken motives, of dissection, of criticism and looking for the angle, no matter how obtuse. I know these matters are never so simple as we like to reduce them to. And I think it is a good thing to hold my representatives accountable.

But sometimes I have to remind myself that it is possible that the main, if not the only, motive for the President's trips and the Senators' votes is that they honestly believe they are doing the right thing. Both of them. Now that's a hard thing to swallow, I know. It is much easier to assume that people that disagree with us must have an angle, an ulterior motive. Otherwise they would obviously be choosing the right way, our way.

When most of these Republican Senators were originally elected by their States, a Republican was president. The voters chose a candidate who talked of tax cuts and smaller government, a legitimate point of view. The crazy part is that they were almost as frustrated as the Democrats during the wild spending and closed doors of the last administration. They had only a little louder voice than the Democratic Senators.

Perhaps they still believe in the reason they were elected. Perhaps they feel it necessary to apply pressure to keep the pendulum from swinging too far too fast, even if the ultimate outcome is unavoidable.

And how can anybody question how President Obama behaved this week? There are thousands of hours of video from the past two years of campaign that look and sound exactly like the way President Obama presented himself and his case in Indiana and Florida. He has not changed. Perhaps he really wants to hear what everyone says, be it the lady that lives in her car with her family, or the Republican governor of Florida that will probably be in the Senate soon. Perhaps the President really wants to be bipartisan like he said. Maybe he feels it necessary to apply pressure to move things more quickly than folks in the beltway are used to because he believes it is the right thing to do.

There are only a few things of which I am certain. The main one is that I am not right all the time. That is to say, I am sometimes wrong. And so is everybody else.

To complicate things further, I cannot be certain when I am right and when I am wrong. Neither can anyone else about their own convictions. We just have to do the best we can.

Assuming that I am right about that (sort of a conundrum in itself), then it might be wise for us all, me, you, the Senators, the President, (maybe not Coach Saban) to listen with an open mind, respect and civility, to the ideas of all. In the tradition of Franklin and Jefferson, that is the way that the best ideas, the best thoughts, the right ways, will be tested, refined and discovered.

It has become vogue in the last decade to attack the messenger rather than the message. If the messenger can be slain, his idea will be trapped and smothered under the weight of his dying corpse. The message, the truth that may have been carried, becomes irrelevant. The only important thing is the skill, weakness and strength of the opponent. I like to call it the Rovian gambit. For instance it would be like settling this stimulus package issue in Congress by letting a Republican and a Democrat arm wrestle for it.

But from what I've seen of the Senate, that would not be pretty, So let's avoid that.

What the truth needs is a fair fight. Let the messengers release their messages freely and get out of the way.

Come on man, let 'em play.

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