No Virginia, There's No Obama Claus!

[Owing to the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, I've opted to post my piece in this week's Village News rather than write something uniquely for Gray's Gazette. I trust you will find it worthwhile. RG]


I was probably eight or nine when I started questioning the stories. Anyway, old enough to have mastered long division and to have a basic grasp of geography.

I asked Dad how many people lived in the world. Armed with this information, I did two calculations.

Assuming, naively, that most people lived in families like ours, I divided Dad’s figure by four to derive the number of houses in the world. I divided the result by 24, which I took to be the number of hours Santa Claus – by following the sun – would have to complete his deliveries in a single night.

Studying the result – the number of houses ­per hour Santa would have to visit – I drew the only logical conclusion. Which was fine, until I decided to share it with my little sister, who didn’t take it well.

Dad then sat me down for a serious talk about the difference between being a good thinker and a good big brother.

This episode stays with me – as does the moral Dad drew. It’s great if a little kid can use logic and long division to solve childhood’s most urgent existential problem – but nobody likes the bearer of ill tidings.

Which is why I approach today’s topic with some trepidation.

At present, all over America, desperate Democrats, liberal independents, idealistic youth, and disciples of Oprah are working themselves into a frenzy about Senator Barack Obama. They’re starting to believe – they want so much to believe – that this bright, engaging young politician is the answer to our nation’s prayers.

And I can’t see it.

Senator Obama might someday be president – perhaps even a great one. But if he runs now – on the message that has propelled him to such sudden and remarkable popularity – I fear he’s doomed to failure.

Because Senator Obama is suggesting that we can have Christmas all year ‘round. He’s selling America the heartwarming Hollywood ending in which everyone comes together as one – the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life; the cheering crowd scenes at the end of Rocky II, Hoosiers, and a hundred underdog films; Tinker Bell reviving because we all believe – and clap our hands.

Senator Obama has latched onto the popular illusion that democracy would be ever so nice if we all set aside our personal interests, freed ourselves from hatred and prejudice, and dismissed our philosophical differences as just so much idle speculation.

He’s asking why we can’t all get along – and ignoring the obvious answer.

Because we’re not saints.

In this real world, each of us pursues real interests and ambitions. All of us are hampered by hatreds and prejudices inherited from our backgrounds or engendered by personal experiences. And none of us knows everything – or understands everything he knows.

Because this is so, in any society, conflict is inevitable. Especially in a free and democratic society.

We may tell pollsters that we want an end to partisan politics – but pollsters seldom ask which of our personal interests or beliefs we’d be willing to sacrifice for the sake of unity.

Thus, polls fail to disclose that the only bipartisanship most of us would actually accept is one in which those who disagree with us shut up and allowed us to do things our way.

And that’s precisely why Senator Obama is not – and cannot be – what so many Americans want him to be.

He’s obviously an attractive candidate. He might even ride this hunger for unity to the White House.

But once in office, he’d have decisions to make. Every decision would produce winners and losers. And very quickly, Americans would begin to remember that – barring exceptional times of emergency, mourning or celebration – a President can’t really bring us together.

No one can.

At this season, we celebrate the birth of an infant who grew up to preach a gospel of universal brotherhood and peace.

He was killed for it – as were Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, and thousands of others, famous and obscure, across the bloody pages of human history.

Which is not to say that the dream – of unity, brotherhood, universal peace – is a lie. The dream is as real as Santa Claus.

But it isn’t the end of the story.

On the day after Christmas, after a long hot bath and lots of Ben-Gay, Santa must start planning the logistics for next Christmas. George Bailey must reopen the Building & Loan and start figuring out how to repay his neighbors’ generosity.

And we must all face jobs and homework; bills, mortgages, and tuition; and the thousand-and-one challenges involved in the pursuit of happiness in a fast-paced, complex society.

Which is why Christmas is so essential. We need this time – so rare in the calendar – to set aside our differences and celebrate the things that unite us.

But what makes Christmas essential is precisely what makes a perpetual Christmas impossible.

Just like the sort of bloodless, non-partisan unity Senator Obama is selling.