The late 1990s were difficult times for Democrats and progressives. It was soul searching time for me in those days. The president of the United States became only the second president to ever be impeached. There were numerous defenses for the president and his behavior. Most of those defenses were permutations of the same defense. Essentially they said that what a man (or woman) does in their personal life does not impact them in their professional life. As long as Bill Clinton was a good president from nine to five then what does matter that he isn’t a good man after those hours?

French president Jacques Chirac famously had multiple affairs. The joke was that he kept replacing each significant other with the same woman ten years younger. If the French people accepted him as their leader then we should have accepted Clinton as our leader. As we know, that argument won out. Except, it really didn’t win out. It helped Bush win the election over Al Gore. I ended up voting for Gore because he was a different man and an infinitely better one than Clinton. However, there were millions that punished him for the mistakes of his former boss.

We often have difficulty separating a message from the messenger. It’s one of the important things I point out when teaching Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. One of the steps he mentions before a direct action campaign is self-purification. It’s a challenging concept for students. Yet, it is absolutely crucial. Listening to someone like Newt Gingrich (at the time) prattle on about character is hilarious. However, it doesn’t mean the point is wrong.

If we have learned anything over the last seven or eight years it is that personal character is absolutely a big deal. We just endured a presidency of someone that has no character. We saw what happened. We saw how that spilled into everything. We saw the abject cruelty. We saw the inhumanity and indifference. We saw the lack of a fundamental understanding and empathy.

Whether this inhumanity is merely a reflection of the people that supported him or whether his inhumanity rubbed off on them is hard to parse. His grotesque existence brings forth any number of questions. However, the most important one is whether those that support him really reflect his inhumanity or if they support him simply because that inhumanity bothers us. Either is equally likely. One might ask what the difference is and I suppose it is a minor detail, but it tells me that in one case there are millions of sociopaths/psychopaths out there. In the other case, they have human empathy, sympathy, and concern in most situations, but just enjoy the political nihilism.

Humanity itself is a fragile thing. Everyone we encounter in our lives is flawed. Look at us in the perfect angle and we can be angels or demons. Both of things make us human. We are walking contradictions and so choosing any one to lead us can seem like an impossible task. The former guy may be human in the purest scientific sense, but lacks any redeeming human traits. Such a statement seems impossible and yet objectively true. There isn’t a positive human trait there. Some of us thought those things weren’t necessary to lead. They were absolutely wrong.

If we could spare a moment for Kevin McCarthy. In many respects, he is like the manager at the fast food place on the night shift. The teenagers have gotten out of school and have taken over the shift. He’s not incredibly talented, have any real natural authority, but he’s the adult in the room.

Some men are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them. Still others ride the magic coattails of mediocrity and are the last ones left standing. McCarthy was never distinguishable at any point in his Congressional tenure. Yet, when Paul Ryan decided that he had had enough and the kooks decided Liz Cheney was unworthy, he was the only one left. Congratulations.

Madison Cawthorn is not a remarkable character in this tale. He’s young. The fact that he sits in a wheelchair is the only thing that distinguishes him from a frat boy looking for his former glory. Cawthorn was on a video/podcast telling a captive host that the GOP is full of orgies and cocaine parties.

We’ve all had leaders like McCarthy before. Their leadership style can best be described as hands off and hoping for the best. I suppose that works when you are surrounded by other adults. That isn’t McCarthy. He finds himself surrounded by idiots making idiotic comments and embarrassing the caucus left and right. Of course, when you do nothing to inspire discipline you aren’t going to get it.

The rest of us get to imagine who Cawthorn may be talking about. Some in the GOP want him to name names. As satisfying as that might be, I think most of us could be spared the mental images involved. Consenting adults can do what they want in their own time. Most of us don’t want to know anything about it.

Yet, McCarthy is playing the politics of reaction. He talks to Cawthorn and tells him if he does something like this again then he will be compelled to warn him again. He’s done the same with Greene and Boebert. Maybe he could round all of them up along with Matt Gaetz (honestly, we know he’s the one Cawthorn is talking about) and put them in time out. On second thought, maybe that’s how this all got started in the first place.

It hit me a little when I was sitting in mass. We do the usual things because I suppose the usual things give us some comfort. Of course, the faithful hopes it does more. We said rosaries for Ukraine and we ultimately hope it has some positive impact. So, it isn’t the prayer themselves but what we say before the prayer.

The priest told us we were praying for all of the world leaders to come up with a peaceful solution in Ukraine. He’s a really great guy (the priest). I know he means well and I imagine most churches are saying something similar. Yet, that sentiment hit me. We are operating in this situation as if a global community needs to come together to come up with a collective solution to a problem where multiple people are involved in the causes.

There is one man. Ukraine didn’t do this to themselves. Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn’t do anything to anger or provoke the Russians. The European community, international community, NATO, or the United States didn’t do anything specifically to invite Russia to invade Ukraine. This was a decision by one man, so any praying needs to be done for the victims, but also for that one man.

This is usually where conservatives point fingers at liberals and liberals point fingers at conservatives. If only you would have done this or said this then none of this would have happened. It’s a trap. Vladimir Putin is a bully. Like most bullies, you either stand up to him or you don’t. There is little rhyme or reason to their behavior, so it’s more about you reacting to him than him reacting to you.

This is one of those scenarios where the former guy’s behavior comes under question. He seemed way to eager to be Putin’s friend. He seemed way to eager to go along with him at all of their various summits (particularly at Helsinki). So, the obvious thought was that he was indebted to Russia in some way. There were some shady business deals that seemed to indicate that.

Yet, that line of thinking is probably trying too hard. The former guy’s pathology is easier to grasp than that. He likes all strong men because he wants to be a strong man. So, he may have gotten help putting him in office, but it might not be anything other than Putin feeling he was better for them than Hillary Clinton.

On the flip side you have the other side wondering if Biden is too old. Maybe he isn’t tough enough to show the resolve necessary to steer the world through this situation. Maybe a strong man would be the best thing to help combat a strong man. Except, we aren’t exactly sure whether the former guy is anything other than a paper tiger. He acts tough though and I guess that’s enough for some.

Again, this is simple. This isn’t about the world developing a complex strategy to deal with all of the players so they can come to an equitable solution. This is about one man flying off the handle. It is about the world simply putting that man back into a box or six feet under in a box. Everything else is simply a distraction.

We naturally assume we would know when evil exists amongst us. We’ve spent an entire lifetime watching crime drama and law procedurals on television. We watch as master criminals and intuitive investigators battle it out in 42 minutes (not counting the commercials).

We pride ourselves in figuring it out before the actors reciting a script. Occasionally even we are fooled and we chalk it up as another great show and another lesson learned. The clown is never the guilty party. The red herring is exactly that. It can’t be the red herring. That would be too easy.

Except someone has spent their entire life as the red herring. He struck again and told you just enough to land himself in hot water. He disqualified himself again. He openly admitted to crimes in his business and crimes against humanity. He couldn’t be guilty. We’re missing something. It can’t be that easy. It doesn’t follow the right story arc.

In many ways, Mitch McConnell represents the evil we readily relate to. He makes you work a little harder. You have to go back into the recesses of your memory to prove it. In this case, McConnell used the reflexive “blame Biden” approach. It was his fault we left Afghanistan. Except it really wasn’t. We all know that, but we have to work a little harder to get there.

Unfortunately, not all of us know it. Some have the memory of a gold fish. They just keep swimming. There is always a subset that never will remember these things. Trump made the deal that Biden executed. He even openly bragged at the time that Biden wasn’t going to be able to get out of the deal. Just keep swimming.

Maybe these things are just too easy to track. Maybe our minds are just too trained to follow the 42 minute story arc. Maybe we are just too used to working at finding evil that we just ignore it when it is standing in front of us. Maybe we are just trained not to trust the words of our leaders.

It is more likely that it is the story of the frog in a boiling pot. The idea is fairly simple. Throw a frog into a boiling pot and it immediately jumps out. Slowly turn up the heat and it will comfortably cook. While some debate the analogy, there is some thought that humans are no better than the common frog. It goes back to the theory of sunken costs. If I bail now then I somehow have to explain to everyone and myself that all of the stuff before was apparently okay.

So, either I am somewhat deplorable or I’m all in. I have a pair of fours in my hand, but I’ve already thrown twenty bucks into the pot, so what the hell? When you are all in you never have to admit the obvious. You can claim it was all fake news anyway. So, when the evil that tempts all mankind announces himself again you just keep whistling by the graveyard.

It started innocently enough. Someone on Astros twitter innocently enough claimed that it cost them 75 dollars to fill up their tank with gas. They apparently drive a larger vehicle with a larger tank. In the end, they thanked Joe Biden.

Some people continue to blame Biden for expensive gas. Others defend Biden’s moves and assert that things will get better. The third group simply point out that presidents don’t have as much control over market forces as people would like to think they could.

Then, the author of the opening tweet chimes in with the money line. I’m not going to torpedo the person here, so I’ll paraphrase. Essentially they said that 75 dollars seemed to be the price some are willing to pay not to have mean tweets.

Naturally, the hounds of war descended on that person. I’m somewhat ashamed that I was one of them. I’m ashamed because I know the person likely wasn’t completely serious and was just fishing for a reaction.

Still, a larger point needs to be made. To put things very simply, there is a minimum bottom level of humanity necessary for leadership. It isn’t about mean tweets. It isn’t about insulting of women, minorities, disadvantaged, handicapped, or struggling nations. It isn’t about a craven disregard for the suffering of others. It isn’t about personal discretions so depraved that all sense of shame has escaped.

One could almost look past those things. Except those things become markers for all of the other stuff. How could someone gleefully lock kids in cages? How could someone skimp on hurricane relief and insult those that need it? How could someone demagogue entire groups of people and compare them with racists and xenophobes as if they are the same? Finally, how could someone gaslight an entire pandemic and spread misinformation until a million Americans wind up dead?

Well, it takes someone with such a deficiency in character on those first things that they become capable of doing those other things. One of the things we used to collectively understand is that whether we are miserly or generous, conservative or liberal, religious or not religious, there was a foundation of humanity necessary to lead. No one that fails to meet that bar need apply. Except this last time someone did apply and they won.

No political victory big or small is worth human depravity. No economic or social plank is worth it. Gas may cost an extra 20 or 30 bucks a tank. There could be a hike in income tax or maybe supply chains are slower. Those things may be under the president’s control, but usually they aren’t. The president is usually just a piece of the machinery that makes the world turn and life to run smoothly. He or she can’t do it alone.

Even if we were to disregard all of that, there is a minimum measure of humanity needed for the job. We have certainly elected men with character flaws before. We’ve had huge battles over which flaws were worse and which ones were acceptable. Those are usually worthwhile discussions until we happened on a man without character flaws. He didn’t have any character flaws because he has no character. No one has ever successfully put a price tag on character, but I’m positive it is worth more than 20 bucks in gas.

This weekend I was reminded of Liz Cheney’s words at the beginning of the January 6th committee investigation that they had a responsibility “…to make sure that Donald Trump is not our nominee, and that he’s never anywhere close to the reins of power ever again.”  TFG was in the Houston area on Saturday grifting money from stupid and corrupt fans, playing his Top 40 hits of lies and hate.  This time, though, he added a new promise to the menu – to pardon the insurrectionists who’ve been charged, convicted, and jailed for attempting to overthrow the US government.  That’s right, folks, even after reversing himself on vaccines, which pissed off the base, he terrified everyone else with his promise to pardon the criminals who did his bidding on January 6th.  On top of that chilling declaration, he called for his supporters to demonstrate in New York and Georgia should prosecutors bring charges against him and his family.

TFG’s profound corruption is back on public display where he demonstrated that nothing at all has changed; he puts his own welfare and wallet in front of all other priorities, including the public welfare.  He doesn’t care if you live or die, as long as the lights are always focused on him and his followers do his bidding without question.

The stakes have never been so high as they are right now.