From “The Human Condition: A
User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
3 April
Impermanence clings doggedly
to the coattails of life. What I fondly assumed was “this” melds into “that”
before my very eyes. The President [ANY President!] pays dearly for his office.
Potomac Fever will cost years, and miles, and dollars, and maybe even spouse
and children. He/she will have faced, more than once, the following ethical
dilemma: “to do the good I know the country needs I must first win the
Presidency, and that may require massaging rock-solid principles that
[nudge-nudge, wink-wink] so I don’t inconvenience my big donors. It may be time
to throw a long-time associate or two under the bus” [this last is,
surprisingly, a broad category!].
And when he/she has laid all
that on the altar of the bitch goddess Success, when he/she has put together
just the right program of substance and shadow bought by the American body
politic he/she will have 18 months, tops, to translate all that goodness into
reality. Because by that first mid-term election the following phrase will
begin nipping at the President’s heels with greater and greater insistence:
“Lame Duck.”
And life goes on, like a
clock ticking calmly, relentlessly, in a thunderstorm – ticking to his demise.
Ain’t life a bitch!
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