Square Peg

Mitt Romney is boring, nerdy and down to earth ... in other words, a square. He doesn't talk about halting the rise of the oceans or healing the great cultural divides. He doesn't stand in front of classical Greek columns waxing poetic while the enraptured swoon to the ground. There is no Romney Girl.

And this is exactly what we need. A calm, mature sense of humility in the face of both history and the future.

The last 2 presidencies have been anything but humble. George Bush (actually, mostly Chaney and Rumsfeld) believed that toppling Hussein would be the hard part and running Iraq afterwards would be easy. They had very little respect for their own limitations, dismantling the Iraqi political infrastructure and leaving a power vacuum in its place. The cost of this mistake was enormous, in lives, capital and opportunity. I believe to this day that Bush thought God was on his side and it would all work out if he just had faith.

Citing examples of Barack Obama's inflated sense of potency could be a full time job ... the only place he has shown restraint is foreign policy, where he has simply continued (to the letter and despite his harsh campaign rhetoric) the institutions and plans of his predecessor. But domestically there is nothing that cannot be improved by the addition of a little Obama magic. Health care, energy policy, financial regulations, the reach of the EPA, education mandates, federal investment in new technologies ... the list is endless.

India, previously, had the unfortunate distinction of being governed by the smartest, most educated leaders (many from Oxford and Harvard) while remaining among the poorest countries in the world. For decades these bright young scholars regulated everything they could touch. They micro-managed imports, exports, lending, land ownership, capital, labor ... everything. It was only starting in 1990 that India woke up to the idea that intelligence and wisdom are two very different things, embraced capitalism, repealed volumes of economic laws and started an economic boom that continues today.

It's probably too much to hope that Obama's ardent followers are embarrassed by their election night euphoria ... the dancing and tears of joy for the savior who finally arrived. It's very likely that they believe these grand plans of reshaping our country are starting to work, that we need four more years to see it through. They would all probably agree that understanding the complexities of the federal government and its effects on a $15 trillion economy is way beyond their own capacity, but our dear leader has it all figured out.

People want to hear big plans, that our leaders will solve our big problems.We don't rally around someone who tells us to be self-reliant, that there things that government should not and cannot do. No one faints when a man admits he has limitations, that he's a mere mortal.

Yep, I'm ready for a square peg. But is the presidency a round hole?