Hi, everyone. This is just me stopping and smelling the zeitgeist for a moment, making an effort to notice history in the making; something we all forget to do, I imagine. I know I do, anyhow. Subtracting the issues...easier said than done since the issues of war, economics, energy, food, and the place of America in the 21st century are every bit as historic as the personages running for election...but if you subtract the issues, this is truly an amazing time for the people of the United States.

The Democratic Party has chosen a phenomenally talented black man, and a highly experienced white woman to contend for its nomination to the highest office in the land. The Confederate Redeemer party, the party of the Solid South and Jim Crow, of Dixiecrats and filled-in public swimming pools, of stalwart support for the gallantly misguided patriarchy of the Old South, of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" has picked a Southern woman and a black guy with an Arabic name to carry its standard. It looks like Obama is going to take the nomination, which means that come November, I'm going to be pulling a lever which will register a vote for a man who would not have counted as a complete person when this country was founded, nominated by a party that once fought tooth and nail to keep people of his ethnicity in profitable bondage, and later, exchanging profit for spite, in a state of apartheid. Whatever else happens, it is a moment I know I will remember as long as I live.

Meanwhile the Republicans have chosen a bona-fide war hero, a man who could retire from public service today having sacrificed more in the service of this country than most of us will ever dream of, a pilot and soldier who can tell you something about "long national nightmares," having endured one personally in his skin and blood and bones in a tiny cell in Hanoi, a man of great integrity and convictions who stands for much of what is good and right with American conservatism. I'm unlikely to vote for him, mostly because he is beholden to the party that has just produced one of the most destructive and detested Presidencies in decades, but on a personal level this is a truly admirable man and a candidate that even the most jaded GOP supporter can feel proud of.

All of these candidates are flawed people, all of them. All of them have bad ideas and imperfect understanding of policies which will wind up affecting all of us. All of them will make mistakes in leadership, and all of them will change in office...in an office that changes everyone who takes it on. But the three of them, each in their way, represents a part of the very best of us, warts and all, and we are definitely living through the supposedly Confucian curse of "interesting times."
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Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH