The lines
from President Obama’s remarkable speech tonight at the Democratic National
Convention that I suspect, and hope, will be most often repeated, retweeted,
and shared during the coming weeks and months, as the American electorate lurches
toward its November appointment with destiny, choosing between Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump, is the following rousing climactic passage:
“And there is only one candidate in
this race who believes in that future, and has devoted her life to it; a mother
and grandmother who'd do anything to help our children thrive; a leader with
real plans to break down barriers, blast through glass ceilings, and widen the
circle of opportunity to every single American, the next president of the
United States, Hillary Clinton.
That's the Hillary I know. That's
the Hillary I've come to admire. And that's why I can say with confidence there
has never been a man or a woman — not me, not Bill, nobody — more qualified
than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.”
As I floated
along at that moment, deeply moved, on the magic carpet of the President’s
tastefully eloquent, persuasive rhetoric,
I realized that we were all witnessing the precise karmic instant at which the decade-long,
complicated, seesaw history between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton finally came
to a soft landing. More than eight years ago, of course, Obama narrowly bested
Clinton in a long, bruising primary race, followed thereafter by Hillary’s
extraordinarily gracious concession, her supporting Obama in his first victorious
race to the White House, and his appointing her as his secretary of state for
his first term.
During
the current campaign, the President cautiously held back from endorsing Hillary
over Bernie until the result of their
bruising primary battle had itself become a foregone mathematical conclusion,
but this time with Hillary on the other side of the seesaw this time, just far
enough ahead to win. And now, finally, tonight, this powerful moment of full
reconciliation and positive payback of a debt, and healing of all old wounds.
As I
watched the President finish his speech, and then Hillary appeared at the side
of the stage, and then they embraced warmly and held onto each other, I could
not help but notice the remarkable (albeit entirely coincidental) parallels between
this heartwarming climax of a real life political drama played out between a
remarkable man and equally remarkable woman, and a fictional tale about a
different sort of second chances, this
one in love instead of politics, played out over a similar time span between a
fictional male-female pair whose characters have also held millions spellbound.
Rather
than give you an explanation, I will just let the creator of that fictional pair
tell you in her own words, and I am sure you will be more than capable of
discerning and enjoying the richness of the parallels:
“Eight
years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been given up. How absurd
to be resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished into distance
and indistinctness! What might not eight years do? Events of every description,
changes, alienations, removals--all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion
of the past-- how natural, how certain too!”
"Then
it is settled, Musgrove," cried Captain Wentworth, "that you stay,
and that I take care of your sister home. But as to the rest, as to the others,
if one stays to assist Mrs Harville, I think it need be only one. Mrs Charles
Musgrove will, of course, wish to get back to her children; but if Anne will
stay, no one so proper, so capable as Anne."
She
paused a moment to recover from the emotion of hearing herself so spoken of.
The other two warmly agreed with what he said, and she then appeared.
"You
will stay, I am sure; you will stay and nurse her;" cried he, turning to
her and speaking with a glow, and yet a gentleness, which seemed almost
restoring the past. She coloured deeply, and he recollected himself and moved
away. She expressed herself most willing, ready, happy to remain. "It was
what she had been thinking of, and wishing to be allowed to do. A bed on the
floor in Louisa's room would be sufficient for her, if Mrs Harville would but
think so."
‘I am
not yet so much changed,’ cried Anne and stopped, fearing she hardly knew what
misconstruction. After waiting a few moments he said, and as if it were the
result of immediate feeling, "It is a period, indeed! Eight years and a
half is a period."
It is a
period, indeed! How wonderful to think about these parallels, and to know that
the deep love of country that unites Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is a true
one that has healed wounds first suffered eight years ago; and that we, the
American people, will be the beneficiaries of that love in November, when we elect
the first American female president, an event that I am pretty darned sure
would have brought a smile to Jane Austen’s face, even as she might also have
added with a twinkle in her eye:
"A strange business this in America….but very pleasing, to be
sure!”
Before I
close, I cannot resist adding this final quotation from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, a description of the “not
altogether completely agreeable” John Thorpe, which tells us, as if we didn’t
already know, that there were men walking around in England two centuries ago
who were uncannily similar in character, judgment, and temperament, to a certain
candidate for President in 2016 who does not need to be named (although he
makes sure his name is always on everyone’s lips nonetheless):
“…all the rest of his conversation,
or rather talk, began and ended with himself and his own concerns. He told her
of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; of
racing matches, in which his judgment had infallibly foretold the winner; of
shooting parties, in which he had killed more birds (though without having one
good shot) than all his companions together; and described to her some famous
day's sport, with the fox-hounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing
the dogs had repaired the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in
which the boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life
for a moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties, which he
calmly concluded had broken the necks of many.
Little as Catherine was in the habit
of judging for herself, and unfixed as were her general notions of what men
ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the
effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable….”
I mean, really! Could anyone give a
more telling textbook definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder than
that? The only thing she left out was the size of John Thorpe’s hands! ;)
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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