Beyond Bob and Carl

Yesterday was Abraham Lincoln's birthday. When I was a child (as opposed to being childish), his birthday was a holiday from school as, too, was George Washington’s birthday which is next Friday.

We still have those dates on our calendars along with "Administrative Professionals Day" (which is on 20 April if you were wondering) and “Remember to Bring Tweezers Day” (which I may have just made up), but days specifically honoring Abe and George have had less significance for quite some time, since Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act and we rolled Lincoln and Washington together into a single date (always a Monday hence the name of the act) calling it Presidents’ Day (this coming Monday) honoring all who have held the office.  

That George spent more than half of his farewell address warning all current and future countrymen about the dangers of political partisanship, I find, in light of where we are today, astounding.

And that Honest Abe used his Second Inaugural Address to offer "(w)ith malice toward none, with charity for all..." at a moment in our history where we most fervently hated one another (with a ferocity that would cost Lincoln his very life a little more than thirteen months later) causes me to wonder why we, you, me and all the lunatic loudmouths and bombastic blowhards on either side of the political fence, simply can't pipe down long enough to work together to get this cart we're all in at this moment in our history out of the ditch we've so resolutely maneuvered it into.

To put it into perspective, when Washington and Lincoln were presidents, people disagreed to the point they fired weapons at one another--and you've seen those weapons, it took work to shoot at somebody.  Words can hurt but muskets and grapeshot killed.

And now we’re consumed by political pouting and posturing across our Sunday morning television talk shows, on the lawns of the White House and in the Halls of Congress that it makes my teeth hurt and when we get all through sorting out who's to blame for all the wrongs and shortcomings, real and/or imagined, maybe we can devote a scintilla of that energy to fixing things. 

We certainly have a long list to choose from, and all day this coming Monday, Presidents’ Day, to think about how we could create solutions, don't we?

It might be a moment to transform immigration, open borders, accessible, affordable health care for all, climate change, economic opportunity and voting rights from some kind of pitched, and high-pitched, shouting match that alienates everyone into topics deserving of reasoned and reasonable discourse rather than diatribes and demonization.

Those who have served as Presidents throughout our history, arguably, weren’t always the best person for the job, but I’d hope we’d agree, they did try to do their best for our country. And that’s a fine line. Perhaps we should try drawing it and then get real. And then stop being so cranky with one another.

-bill kenny