I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few grocery items. I parked around to the side of the store beside the building where Jake fixes flats and does minor auto repair work. Time was you could bring your car by and Jake would change the oil and fix most anything that was not working right, but the environmental laws pretty much stopped Jake from changing the oil and the newer computerized automobiles now require too much expensive high tech equipment so that Jake has mostly abandoned his automobile repair work. These days the side garage building is mostly used for storage purposes.
When I went inside, Jake looked up and asked about my cold. I told him the chicken soup I picked up last week had pretty much taken care of the cold and I had only some minor drainage problems left. I expected that would be gone by the weekend. Jake shrugged and said there wasn’t a cold remedy on the market that would beat a hot bowl of chicken soup. I heard a laugh and looked over toward the pot belly stove where Mister Johnson was sitting with his knife and old piece of pine. Mister Johnson has been carving on that piece of pine for years and no one seems to know what he plans to make of it. Possibly his intention is nothing more than to give Jake a pile of wood shavings to sweep up off the floor in the evenings.
Hermann Spencer was over with Mister Johnson as was Willard Smith and Ned Simpson. I walked over and heard Willard Smith talking about the political debates that had been on television. Willard was of the mind that President Bush had not done so badly as the political pundits were making out. Willard had watched the whole thing beginning to end and he thought the President had conducted himself quite well. Those facial expressions the pundits kept harping on seemed to Willard a natural reaction to hearing some of the things the Democratic candidate was saying. Willard had also watched the Vice President and the Democratic challenger in their one debate and he thought Cheney did right well for himself. There is no doubt in Willard’s mind who should be President come election day.
Mister Johnson had not watched the debate between the President and his Democratic opponent, but he had heard the news broadcasts on radio the next morning and the first replay of the President’s voice on early morning radio news had told him the President had not made a good showing of his position. Willard wanted to argue that it was not possible to judge a ninety minute exchange by hearing one sound bite selected by a liberal news media. You needed to hear the whole thing to make an informed opinion. Mister Johnson was of the position he had heard most everything either man has to say over the course of the past year. He has heard each man stake out his position numerous times and was of the opinion an old man could do himself better by going to bed early and getting his rest than by staying up late to watch two men repeat the same things they had already said on any number of occasions before. Mister Johnson is not a big fan of the President and he never was in favor of the invasion of Iraq, but he has come to believe the war against a group of terrorists who wish to drag the whole world back to a mythical paradise of the fourteenth century is critical to the survival of Western civilization. Mister Johnson is of the opinion that the President, whatever his failings, has the determination, even the stubbornness, to continue that war in a decisive manner and Mister Johnson believes that determination is important. The Democratic candidate, Mister Johnson believes, just does not have the same resolve.
Hermann Spencer is not so enthusiastic of the President as Willard Smith. Hermann thought the Democratic challenger had handled himself quite well as had his running mate in the debate between Vice Presidential contenders in their one debate. Hermann pointed out that the Democrat is not promising to abandon the war if he is elected. That failure to promise immediate pull out if he is elected President has been a major sore point with the anti-war faction of the Democratic party and is the major reason the anti-war folks support for John Kerry has been less enthusiastic than it might be. The Democrat has promised he will not abandon the war in Iraq, but will prosecute it in a more intelligent fashion by bringing in more allies to put troops on the ground to fight the terrorists. No one, it seems, is talking of cutting and running.
Willard pounced on that argument with the same rebuttal the administration has used ever since John Kerry first began to promise to persuade European nations to contribute troops to Iraq. Willard reminded Hermann there is no evidence Germany and France would be any more enthusiastic about sending in troops to support a John Kerry administration than they have to support George Bush’s war. What it boils down to, Willard insisted, is that this war is America’s war. The stark reality is that the war will be won or lost by Americans and by American troops and it doesn’t matter how many other countries sign on to the war or how many send a token force of troops to fight on the ground. The war against the terrorists will be fought and won or lost by the United States of America. No one else is going to come riding over the hill to relieve the United States of that responsibility. That is just one of the hard facts John Kerry will discover should he have the misfortune to be elected President.
I decided I needed to get home to finish up an ad design I was working on for a client in Selmer, so I told the Pot Belly Stove Philosophers I had to be going and picked up the things I needed. I paid Jake and went out to my car. Like Mister Johnson, I have the impression that, if President Bush fails to win the votes for a second term, he will have lost the election largely because of his performance in the first debate. If he wins, it will be that he overcame that performance.
END
