Steve and I saw The Fog of War yesterday. It's a fascinating and somewhat disturbing series of interviews with Robert McNamara, interspersed with Oval Office tapes, newsreels, and other clips from the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. While many aspects of the movie moved and surprised me, I found most interesting McNamara's unresolved ambivalence about Vietnam. He seems to believe that we were right to send troops to Vietnam during the Kennedy years, and that American forces were engaged in a "Cold War action" to prevent Southeast Asia from falling entirely to the Communists. But at the same time, he unequivocally blames Johnson for the disaster that the war became, and he makes no bones about his view that things would have ended differently in Vietnam (at least for America) had Kennedy not been shot.
More than anything, though, this movie got me thinking about the folly of the notion that any individual is capable of leading a whole country, and of making fair and wise and right decisions in times of international conflict or crisis. What kind of mad arrogance must someone own to believe he (or she) is capable of handling the awesome responsibility of heading a nation? Can -- or should -- we trust any individual who fancies himself qualified to be President? For that matter, what should we seek in our leaders, beyond the ambition and ego that any presidential pretender must possess? We speak of intelligence, integrity, and a host of other qualities we purport to demand of our presidents, but what should we really be looking for in the man (or woman) to whom we entrust the keys to the kingdom and the codes to the world's end?
The media has stripped any illusion we might once have entertained about our leaders' infallibility. We are spared no foible or indiscretion, however private or long-ago. But are the newsmongers giving us what we really need to evaluate our candidates? I count myself among those who would vote for just about anyone (except, perhaps, Al Sharpton) cloaked in the Democratic mantle and running against Bush fils. Yet I wonder what questions we should ask of Kerry, Dubya, and anyone else with designs on the Oval Office, to better gauge their ability to lead us. We claim to know their views on health care, jobs, reproductive freedom, the separation of church and state, and the death penalty -- all issues on which I cast my votes. But how can we know whether Kerry (or Bush) can salvage the debacle of Iraq, install there a stable and democratic government, and stop the steady flow of Old Glory-draped caskets from Basra and Baghdad? How can we know how our next President will react to the next terror attack that strikes the heart and soul of America? Can any of the programs and plans and platforms and predictions ensure that his response will be considered and just?
Obviously, I haven't a clue. So I'll close my eyes and vote, and hope that President Kerry proves himself worthy of my blind faith.
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* "Nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting." Abraham Lincoln
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