Qualified to Succeed W and Bill?

The home page of today's New York Times online includes an article entitled, "Friends Say Drugs Played Bit Part in Obama's Young Life." The essence of the piece seems to conclude that at worst, Senator Obama may have slightly exaggerated the role of pot, alcohol and cocaine in his early life (it is obligatory for any candidate to have the "obstacles-overcome" plank in his or her personal platform), and at best, he simply told the truth about his adolescence to the best of his memory.

This posting could turn into a a treatise on hermeneutics--specifically exploring content and context of authorial intent and reader interpretation through layers and layers of contexts within contexts within worldviews within worldviews--of both the above article and Senator Obama's Dreams From My Father, but such is not my authorial intent for this post (within the respective contexts of the article and my worldview--I've not read the book). What do he and his close friends remember, how accurately do they remember it, what is their intention in speaking out (tell the truth? support the candidate? avenge some real or imagined adolescent slight?)?

Who cares?

If the above comes off as a bit abstract and borderline scholarly, fans of crass concreteness take heart: the current Decider-in-Chief has admitted to addressing his own adult addictions (as opposed to the Senator's alleged school-age indiscretions) through faith and fitness--Jesus and the gym; his predecessor engaged in Cigar-based-Cunnilingual-Nonsex in the Oral-Orifice-Oval Office (that doesn't quite work, I know, but that's the point).

Even if the Senator from the great state of Illinois spent most of his adolescence stoned--and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that he did--that behavior would seem to confirm, rather than call into question, his fitness for the Presidency in light of the behavioral standards set by the two most recent individuals to have held the job.

What's good for the two white guys is good for the black guy, at least in this particular instance. W's substance abuse and Bill's early-onset sexual indiscretions preceded each of their respective ascendencies to Leader of the Free World (although by January 2009 Mr. Bush may have devolved that moniker to Co-Leader, Also-Ran, or Honorable-Mention). Senator Obama's winning or losing the Democratic candidacy should have nothing to do with his adolescent behavior--even if he was just a really good kid who's now trying to gain some street cred.*

I look forward to voting for either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton in November. I have not hitched my wagon to either campaign yet. Neither his skin pigmentation and ethnicity nor her chromosone arrangement will determine my vote.

*Relevant nonsequitur: an excerpt from the currently-being-revised edition of The Quality of Effort (expected availability, November 2008) regarding the impact of my own adolescent "non-history" with drugs and alcohol:

"...I did not smoke, drink, use drugs ...during my high school days. I had my first drink when I was of legal age, and I’ve never smoked or used recreational or performance-enhancing drugs.

"I realize that some readers will respond to the above with respect, some with doubt, and some, especially those with a somewhat more adventurous adolescence than I had, with pity for such a naïve, conventional, even puritan experience, but I share this to neither brag nor complain, but to preface the contents of this chapter. As a kid I believed that my chances for success were better without tobacco, alcohol and drugs, and admittedly, I felt it was 'unfair' when some of my friends, who did smoke or drink, enjoyed significantly more athletic success in adolescence than I did. Still, I believed I was doing what served me best.

"Funny then, that years later, when some parents challenged our school’s policies on smoking, drinking and drugs during my tenure as athletic director... and they asked me to try to view the policy through the lens of my own behavior as an adolescent, they simply refused to believe me when I told them the truth. One father asked where the no-smoking policy left his children since he gave them smoking privileges when they turned sixteen. I tactlessly responded that perhaps he could find a privilege that didn’t carry an illness-and-death warning from the Surgeon General on its packaging. Only when a good friend on the coaching staff, who was a three-sport local legend with a reputation for partying as hard as he played, stood up and endorsed the policy, were these parents willing to accept it.

"My words then and my writing now were and are not intended as snide swipes at these parents. As were the parents who supported the policies...these were good people who loved their kids, and were exploring that wonderful owner’s-manual-less experience of parenting" (pp. 77-78).