When we were children, there was no President's Day.
We celebrated, individually, the birthdays of two famous
U.S. Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington,
both in February. In more recent years, a national holiday
was declared to consolidate both into what is now known as
President's Day.
An important part of what was celebrated on Washington's birthday
every February was the story of a young George Washington learning
a childhood lesson when he most unfortunately chopped down a
cherry tree, and was asked by his father about it. As schoolchildren,
we heard that folktale often.
What was lost, that February Saturday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
a couple of weeks ago as the nation was preparing to celebrate
President's Day, was the core moral concept behind the story
of our first president's untimely youthful ax swing.
It wasn't really about whether the newly elected governor of
Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, had ever recited those lines before.
It wasn't even really about whether the lines in question were written
by David Axelrod, advisor to campaigns for both. Plagiarism,
while a serious charge, wasn't at the heart of what was troubling
about not only the action, but the subsequent response.
In that moment, Senator Barack Obama lost an important opportunity.
We teach our children to revere honesty. We use the example
of the person known affectionately as the "father of our country"
to reinforce that principle.
The young senator from Illinois could have seized that moment
to be, like the young George Washington, unable to tell a lie.
The lesson learned in the cherry tree is not that mistakes should
never be made. The lesson learned is how we respond to, and
defend, those mistakes. In glimpsing his possible future and the
impact he might have on a nation's youth, an entire generation,
a generation taught that copying schoolwork is wrong, that
stealing intellectual property is wrong, he could been presidential.
The speech to Wisconsin's Democrats would have been equally
effective, if not more so, if Obama had prefaced the lines in
question thusly, "As Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts so
wisely stated when faced with the same challenge. . ."
But the cherry tree, once cut, could not be put back, any
more than Humpty Dumpty could be reassembled. So
Senator Obama, instead of backtracking, dissembling, or trying
to point out examples of other people doing the same, could have
stood tall and said, "I've been running my campaign on honesty
and principle, and to use the words of someone else without
attributing them, as though they were my own, sets a bad
While Patrick and Axelrod were scrambling to put together
a cohesive cover story, and make it mesh with the candidate's
words, it was clear that there was parsing of words, and
the important lesson of the moment was being lost.
Unfortunately, we saw an example of the same when Obama,
confronted in a previous debate, led the American electorate to
believe he really didn't know Chicago financier Tony Rezko.
It was clear, later, that was a less than accurate characterization.
Again, this week, we saw another example of the same when
the Obama campaign, and the candidate himself, claimed that
no conversation had taken place between the Obama campaign
and any officials of the Canadian government regarding double-
speak on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Faced
with the truth of that situation, Obama could truly shed the
politics of the past against which he's ardently running, and
stand tall in his boots with the firm conviction of the first man
to hold the highest office in the land,
"I cannot tell a lie."
Instead, those who hope for change in this great nation will
be left with the sad realization that instead of aspiring to
our higher angels, another candidate was doing just what
was necessary to get elected, and get by, without getting caught.
Those who stake out the moral high ground for themselves
need to cling to it. Leadership requires setting an example.
Senator Obama had an opportunity to indelibly write on a moment
in history, to inspire and to lead, and he missed it. It's doubtful
it has yet occurred to him.
Whether it will be lost on a nation's children is the question.
