Excluded Wisdom and Transformational Moments

Allow me, if you will, to build on a post by another one of our bloggers (Donovan). His invocation of W. E. B. DuBois provokes one immediately to think about the many strands of thought that that American genius (expatriate, of course, in the end) wove together to fashion both political action and social criticism. DuBois's greatest trait, it seems to me, was his ability to fashion from many academic disciplines a sense of both wisdom and justice that he took very seriously. It is a point that we ignore at our peril, particularly when the dogs of political war begin barking about *meaningless* things like experience. It is, I surmise, much like the call for "change" in politics--a truism that means everything and, thus, nothing.

But it does raise an important point about the poverty of our current political discourse. Hillary Clinton's attack of Barack Obama's record on exceedingly frivolous grounds during Monday's debate (January 21) revealed both just how much is at stake in the Democratic primary, and how unwilling candidates (including, sadly, Obama) are unwilling to make a real statement about issues. This is sad for us, although we do little to help it by continuing to patronize the cable news networks that have made hash of journalism rather than augment our political intelligence. Perhaps only a mass boycott would change this--or perhaps more people consciously turning to intelligent news sources. This seems unlikely at best, and perhaps dangerously naive.

But I digress. The poverty of television journalism in the cable era is nothing new to Americans reared in the late-twentieth century. More important is perhaps that the internet has actually provided a forum whereby people can demand the kind of intelligent commentary that befits a widely educated population. We have opportunities, both through blogging and other means, to discuss how we see the issues and how we see presidential candidates (in both parties) addressing them.

As an historian, I am excited about the possibilities for the 2008 election. The Bush administration effected a constitutional coup in executive power (signing statements, warrantless wiretapping, going to war virtually without congressional permission, etc.) but has failed to create a one-party state the way Karl Rove envisioned. This simultaneous success and failure means that the next president will have a tremendous opportunity to reconstruct the presidency. This may mean that we continue down the path of increased executive power, or it may mean a reversion to a more balanced constitutional system. This is but one of the many issues that may be decided by our choice for president this year.