Beware The Ring Of Power

Should we feel surprise when the public-spirited words of our leaders belie their smudged fingerprints, seemingly left in some shadowy game as though there are two governments, one affirming ideals, the other cutting deals? It all seem to show one thing — someone's put on the ring of power and it has a life of its own. Remember the Nixon tapes? Did you feel a kind of thrill to learn the President had feet of clay — peppering his talk with 'Jew this' and 'Jew that' and a whole soup of obscenities? Now Karl Rove seems to be running a cabal to try to turn our government's machine to partisan ends. The same pattern appeared, at least, through the filters of many Republican eyes, with only the names different, during the Clinton years. Something in us longs to see our so-called leaders as fallible as those of us whose innocent personae hide every kind of secret. But behind the stage of the public drama eternal values wait like gods, not so much desiring to ensnare us, but simply Present in the grid of existence. Aristotle told us long ago the message of the downfall of a Hamlet, or a Nixon, or, should it be, a Bush — look to yourself!