Hope and Inspiration -- John & Elizabeth

Normally I'd like to post a nice detailed discussion of the candidates, their issues, and back grounds, and look at that history against the latest breaking news. But the simple fact is that Elizabeth Edwards has cancer, and her husband, John, wanted to explain in the most clear terms what this means to his campaign for the US presidency.

There are many people I have seen throughout the years who exemplify grace under pressure--that complex element of tragic literature that we all had to study to understand Shakespeare, the Bible, and ultimately, humanity. And there are many more people I have seen in abject circumstances, or even just standing in a long line at the market, who haven't got a clue of what any of this means.

I was depressed, and simultaneously uplifted, by the message from the Edwards couple today. The message is simple--life deals out good stuff and not good stuff. We're all mortal, so the meat of the matter is how we deal with the good and the not so good. The Edwards' have had their share--cancer, a son's death--and yet they come to us all in coherence and, for want a better word, class--and tell us they are hopeful, positive, and not going to stop what they're doing to go off in a corner and feel bad about themselves.

Yes John Edwards is a multimillionaire. Yes the Edwards' have the means to get the best health care possible. So what? When you're dead, as Kurt Vonnegut once wrote in essence of our mortality, you're dead. And ironically, Edwards is on the crusade to seriously work on reforming the stagnant health-care system of this great country of ours.

The point is this: I heard an articulate man, who has the competency to be President of the United States, explain a situation to his potential constituents. And I remembered the speech from the nitwit who has that job, from a couple of nights ago. And I was again embarrassed for humanity, and for myself, and for Americans, because somehow, despite the genius monument of our great Constitution, we have allowed the likes of George W Bush and Cheney and the whole bunch to take charge, when there are people available like John and Elizabeth Edwards, and more, who so obviously would serve us better.