Common Sensibility

Common Sensibility

My mother taught me as a child all I needed to know to be successful in whatever I wanted to do. According to Mom, I need to treat everything and every person respectfully and wear clean underwear. As long as I continue to do those things, I should go far in this world. My roommate in college, Joel (RIP), was a great guy, and he indeed went far in the world over the span of his tragically shortened life. But Joel only heeded half of my mother’s advice all through college. He always treated everything and every person respectfully, and I suppose that he technically never wore dirty underwear. He just didn’t wear any underwear at all.

The reason I bring this up is that there is a Presidential election coming up this fall, and I’ve been internally torn as to which candidate to toss my powerful support. Here in Virginia the Tuesday after Super Tuesday, I’ll have the opportunity to do my part in deciding who the next President of the United States will be.

I already know that I cannot in good conscience vote for any of the Republicans. John McCain seems like a nice enough fella, and there’s no question that he’s a true war hero. But his positions on many of the issues dear to me, like education and the war in Iraq, are just plain misguided. He wants to allow government money to flow with children to private schools. To me, that’s just a huge mistake. His war positions make as much sense to me as the whole war in the first place. How many more American soldiers have to die for a lie? The rest of the Republicans are an assorted lot of loons and charlatans. I completely discount them all.

Practically, that leaves me with Democrat choices. I suppose I could make a personal statement and support one of the candidates from the Green Party, but I’ve never heard of any of them before. On the Democrat side, it’s Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton (or Mike Gravel-left loon).

Last night, my decision became crystal clear to me, and I want to thank my mother for the guidance she embedded in my soul. In case you missed it, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton met in a friendly debate before the CNN cameras and Wolf Blitzer last night. I was busy writing up a blog entry for my teacher association blog and flitting back and forth between boring Duke basketball and the debate.

As the debate ended, something extraordinary happened that sealed my choice. As the candidates stood up from their chairs, Obama looked at his chair and politely pushed it back in before he moved over to chat with Wolf Blitzer. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, pushed her chair back, stood up, and walked away without a second thought about pushing the chair back in. It just dangled there in space before America’s television public, forgotten and disrespected.

My mother wouldn’t have appreciated that move by Clinton. It shows a callous disregard for common courtesy and politeness. Far too many people in today’s society are people who leave their chairs out. These same people toss cigarette butts out car windows and yak on cell phones while they are driving down the road. They bitch and moan when they are forced to wait in any line and never return the money in a found wallet. These people have little regard for others. They go through life with a sense of entitlement and probably have dirty underwear to boot.

Obama carefully pushed his chair in. I’m not checking, but if I was, I bet his underwear is clean, too.


Check out the video below. Slide to near the end at exactly the 10-minute mark. Watch Obama and Clinton interact with their chairs for yourselves and make up your mind.