Godless Conservatives and Liberals

I took a week off from the blog to celebrate a birthday, the birth of my grand daughter and to participate in a funeral.  I hoped you missed this blog.  If not I will have to work harder.

Do you remember Jack Ryan?  Not the Tom Clancy novel character Jack Ryan, nor his portrayal in the film Hunt for Red October. The Jack Ryan I am talking about is the one that launched Barak Obama to a national platform.  Had there been no Jack Ryan there may not have been a President Obama.

Jack Ryan was an investment banker and won a widely contested Republican primary for a US Senate seat.  With eight candidates, Ryan won 35% of the vote and was preparing to face off against the Democratic Senate candidate Barak Obama.  The polls opened for this election with Obama in the lead.  But it was not an insurmountable lead. 

The problem was that Jack Ryan was a godless conservative.  He may have held the right positions to attach the religious right voters but he had skeletons.  Once upon a time he was married to an actress.  During their divorce and custody hearings she revealed that he had expressed a sexual fantasy of having sex with his wife in front of other people at a sex club in Paris.   They never did this, but he wanted to-she didn’t.

Some have argued that she brought up these issues as a way of getting more out of the divorce.  Some have painted her as a conniving woman who wanted to blackmail her husband for better terms of the divorce.  That is actually irrelevant. 

This information came out during the election and as a result Jack Ryan withdrew from the contest.  Allan Keyes stepped in and Barak Obama won in a landslide.  Four years later, he became president and the rest, as they say, is history.

Some time later in discussing looking into the divorces of political leaders Ryan stated: "Let me be the only person this has happened to. Don’t ask for Ted Kennedy’s.  Don’t ask for John McCain’s.  Don’t ask for Joe Lieberman’s.  Just stop. This is not a good precedent for American society if you really want the best and brightest to run.”

My problem is the last line.  Ryan makes the mistake of assuming that the superficial character traits are what will make a person a good leader.  By superficial I mean things such as intelligence, education, and work experience.  Ryan looked like a pretty good candidate until the ugly truth was revealed.  What Ryan lacked and what American needs is character. 

I will not advise you how to vote in the up coming election.  I wonder about the character of both major party candidates.  What I do want to point out is that a small lack of character in a critical moment can have a monumental impact.  So, politics a side, how is the character factor of your life doing?  We are all deeply flawed in character.  What we must become are people whose flawed character leads us to repentance.