Author: Danielle Levy

To those who are scared about an Obama presidency the answer may be to give him the benefit of the doubt—According to an NBC poll 24% of the electorate feels scared about an Obama presidency. To you who are among those 24%, or to you looking for what to say to those who are scared, I suggest, give the president-elect a chance. We did not elect a savior, nor a Santa Claus, but a leader who will have to deal with the many serious problems before us. Many of you are Christian. Wouldn’t now be a time to practice the best of Christianity: tolerance, charity, understanding, patience? Give him the chance to surprise you. Despite the landslide, he knows there are those he has to convince. All this does not mean you, or I, will agree with everything he does, but even if we disagree we can hopefully see that his decisions will be, as they usually are for presidents, well intended. Give him credit for knowing what he doesn’t know, for looking for that knowledge in those who do. Give him the opportunity to prove himself, to test his mettle and his character. The presidency deserves our respect, no matter who holds the office. That ought to be so even when we are against the decisions of an administration, not because we are stuck for the duration of a presidential term, but because as Americans we believe in the freedom to disagree, and the power of the ballot box.
If I read this new president correctly, then treating him as we would like to be treated were we in a new and difficult spot may help us reap the reward of having given him the benefit of the doubt.

Even after the election ends negative campaigning contributes to a divided country–Both you and Senator Obama have engaged in negative campaigning, but since it seems to me, your campaign and your statements are not only more frequent, but have the potential for more lasting consequences, I’m writing to you. I can understand your grit, your tenacity, your holding on to the outcome you desire saying you shall win. These are qualities that I suspect helped you become the war hero you are. But I don’t understand your distortions of the facts trying to paint your opponent as dangerous, undesirable and unpatriotic. You know that Sen. Obama is not a Muslim;you know that if he were,that would be in line with the freedom of religion guaranteed by our constitution;you know that his relationship to William Ayres is so slim it couldn’t even make him a terrorist by association;you know that his friendship with professor Khalidi couldn’t possibly be the determinant to his policy in regards to Israel. You ostensibly believe that you need this kind of arguments in order to make your case, set yourself apart from Senator Obama, although there are many differences between your approaches and lots to discuss about such vital topics as budgets, taxes, health care. Somehow you keep going back to those negative attacks that make some feel good. But these people are Americans too and they now believe the worst about Senator Obama. If, as it increasingly looks likely, Senator Obama wins, what happens to those you catered to, convinced even? I know some of them. They are actually scared. You can go back to the U.S. Senate, but where do they go? They already feel alienated. They distrust Obama and are ready to distrust anything he would do because they tend to think of him as a form of anti-Christ. Yes, these are mainly the so called Christian right, people you tried to appeal to (or is it appease) by choosing Governor Palin. But it’s like toothpaste being out, it can’t be put back. The country will continue to be divided, and the divide so deep as to be unbridgeable.
If I am right to believe polls and pundits and Obama wins, I hope once you’ve recovered from your loss, that you talk to those who believed your campaign arguments and get them to see they may disagree with a President Obama, but there is nothing to fear.

Sarah Palin either victimized herself or was victimized by the Republican machinery, either way she deserves our compassion–One of the latest polls shows that 55% of Americans do not believe Governor Sarah Palin is ready to take over as president should the need arises. Besides that, her negatives are rising and in many circles the talk is that her candidacy has brought down the chances of the Republican party to succeed. As a result there are those including important members of the Republican party who are questioning Sen. John McCain’s judgment.
It would seem that it was a predictable scenario. Did the Republican machinery do Palin a disservice by having unrealistic expectations, thinking she would be like clay they could fashion in whatever mold they deemed necessary in order to win, wanting her to be what she could not, unable to see past the facts that she would be the first woman on the Republican ticket and would energize the base and assure the vote of those who had so largely contributed to elect George Bush, and not much else? But too there is the inescapable fact that she accepted. What was she thinking? Did she wonder if this was a god-sent, some peerless chance? Did she think of saying no, I’m really so flattered but not ready, all the while hoping the no would be leaked and she would become a de facto hero for her exercise of humility?
Whether she was prey to her own ambition or to that of the Republican party, she deserves our compassion for being victim of narrow vision and narrow interests. It may be more true if Obama wins, but even if she does make it to the second top spot in the land, it would be as if she’d arrive there with shadows all around her.

Marshaling arguments to defend our opinion is not thought—I was watching one of those public affairs shows where guests share what they are supposed to think about what happened that week. A young woman (whose name I don’t remember and I’m glad since pointing fingers wouldn’t be helpful)trying to convey the mood of the electorate said voters will not want to give all the power to one party and so are likely to split their vote between president and congress, underlining her point by adding that was after all what the constitution was about, the balance of power.She was articulate and passionate about what she said unmindful apparently of some underlying lapse. As I recall the concept of the balance of power, definitely a contribution of the U.S. to the rest of the world, is meant to focus on the three branches of government, where one branch is not to exercise all the power, as it was during so many monarchies and is today under any dictatorship. Balancing power among branches of government which are each institutions in their own right not subject to elections, and the idea of balancing power between political parties which are very much based on elections are, it seems clear to me, two separate processes. The later, of course with only indirect and oblique ties to the constitution.
What this young woman did is so typical, as well a good example of what people do when they somehow substitute using facts or concepts to support their point of view instead of actually thinking through a position or idea and then using facts and concepts to explain it. This may sound a chicken and the egg question, if not nitpicking, but at heart reveals a problem so many so called pundits and talking heads often have. Maybe because they are under pressure of the 24 hours cycle, maybe because they just haven’t had to time to concentrate on a given subject, maybe because of something else, they create an illusion of thought instead of actually thinking, tending to mistake opining for thought.
On the one hand it doesn’t matter because we don’t have to agree with them, and certainly don’t have to even listen to them. On the other, however, it is part of a big problem. It is so prevalent.It contributes to our not understanding what thought is or does. It clouds our grasp of the issues. More fundamentally, if we don’t use thought to understand and explain problems, how will we ever find right answers?