News Intelligence Analysis
John F. Kerry and Charisma
By Katherine Yurica
June 30, 2004
A writer stands on Lookout Mt. and views this nation from afar, “It seems that America stands in a crossroads,” she says. “There are two roads that diverge before us and it appears our people remain dumbfounded at which path to take.” The writer explains that both ways are appealing and scenic, “but it’s not possible to see each path’s direction or terrain beyond the first hundred feet or so.” Indeed the trees and bushes hide the paths from any viewer’s sight. “It’s clear,” the writer reports, “half the people are trying to find George W. Bush’s road and the other half are looking for signs pointing to John Kerry’s way.”
Descending from the mountain top, the writer mixes with the crowds. Several people shout, “Why are there no signs?” And the writer put that down.
“The problem seems to be,” the writer wrote, “no one knows for sure which way belongs to which party, and no one wants to risk being on the wrong path.” Sean Hannity shouted out (along with several pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who repeated what they heard), “No respectable Republican can afford to be seen walking on the same path with a Democrat—even if he’s your neighbor. A Democrat is, as we all know, as impure as a Samaritan was in Jesus’ age.” Someone asks, “What about the good Samaritan? Isn’t he the neighbor who binds the wounds of an injured man and hospitalizes him and pays the bill?” “Humph,” said a woman standing near, “Samaritans are nothing more than bleeding heart liberals whom my god despises!”
A little child standing near looked up at the woman and asked, “Who is your god? And who is your neighbor?” The woman never heard the questions, so the writer couldn’t put her answer down.
Like a schooner in a windless bay waiting for the billows of change to rise to put them underway, most Americans sit restlessly at this juncture and fan themselves for the heat is heavy and refuses to rise. All seem to be hoping someone will show up and tell them which road they ought to take.
The writer wrote down her observation, “A strange malaise seems to have gripped the country.” One woman said, “I’m just too lazy to investigate for myself!” She said the words proudly and with a little edge of taunt. In fact, as the conversation went on, she revealed she understands that one path could be very different from the other, but as she pointed out, it was beyond her imagination to think her failure to discover which path is the better of the two, could cause irreparable damage to her and her family’s future.
“Why this is America,” she said, “There’s no need to think!”
“But,” said the writer, who was interrupted by the woman who said, “That’s what freedom is about!”
The writer wrote in her notebook, “She thinks ‘freedom’ is leaving decision making to others!”
Off in the White House, where splendor runs supreme, a disgruntled president uses words like, “A—holes,” to describe his delight with the minions of Christ. “Wouldn’t you like to put them all on leashes?” he laughs. While the vice president hurls the “F” word and says, “It makes me feel really good to piss on the Senate floor—after all it’s a profane place!” They both laugh.
John F. Kerry need not be worried, his task is easier than anyone might imagine. His job is to capture the language, the metaphors of the hour, and all he needs to know is that these little word tools, like energized children, will shout across the yards and lawns of America, “Come Americans, the game is afoot! We’re ready to take our country back!” Like Jack Kennedy before him, there’s a Robert Frost poem that he should learn to say. It’s a different poem than Jack chose; this is one for today. It’s called “The Road Not Taken”* and John Kerry should recite at least the last stanza, the poem begins:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
It’s time America takes the lonely road less traveled. That road rejects militancy and arrogance. That road is the way that Jesus taught. It’s the road of humility, of kindness, and of love.
We are now living in a time ladened with burdens too heavy to bear. It’s a time of bitter political-civil warfare. It’s now time for a craggy faced thoughtful leader who comprehends more than he can say to walk on the stage of world affairs and speak words that carry this nation’s people to uplands unbounded, to a place where we can touch the sublime. He’s an Abraham Lincoln and he’s an FDR. He’s a decent man who talks plainly and makes the very stars to shine brighter because his time has come.
David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest in 1969, caught a taste of the excitement that Jack Kennedy brought with him:
“It was a glittering time. They literally swept into office, ready, moving, generating their style, their confidence—they were going to get America moving again. There was a sense that these were brilliant men, men of force, not cruel, not harsh, but men who acted rather than waited. There was no time to wait, history did not permit that luxury; if we waited it would all be past us….History summoned them, it summoned us: there was little time to lose.”**
John Kerry already has a charisma that cannot be faked. He has it because he is a man who genuinely loves his fellow men to the point of risking his own life; for who can forget that he turned the boat back to rescue just one man. We Americans love those who have risked their lives for us. When John Kerry walks out onto the next stage, all he needs to do is smile the heartfelt smile of a man who is lifting his audience and simultaneously lifting our nation up from the river of militancy, dominance, shame and despair.
The audience will immediately sense his love for them and they will send radiance to him and their radiance will be felt and returned by the new JFK. He will be sending charisma back to the audience and to our nation, in ever spreading circles of the gift of grace from God who once again will crown our hood with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. We are the people who love! And make no mistake; love is more powerful than hate! This then is the path to take.
*As published in The Pocket
Book of Modern Verse, revised edition, 1958, Pocket Books, Inc.
New York.
**David Halberstam, The Best and the
Brightest, Random House, 1969, page 38.
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles College, the University of Southern California and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
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