Stuck

Over at Charlotte was Both, Amy has made this wise observation about current Catholic discourse on the presidential race:

Political conversations among Catholics are stuck. Just stuck. Anyone who has been reading the politically-oriented Catholic blogs or websites sees this pretty quickly. Every single conversation - every bloody one - goes like this:

A: Obama’s positions are unacceptable to faithful Catholics because…

B. Oh, yeah? What about McCain’s positions. They’re unacceptable because….

A: But Obama’s unacceptable positions touch on more serious issues.

B. Oh really? The bishops say…

A. Oh really? But the bishops say…

I’ve sort of racked my brain trying to figure out an alternative paradigm. I’ve failed so far. One of the things that seems to be missing is cold hard reality. No, not the reality of balancing goods - that’s on full display and everyone seems to tap into that - but on the reality of politics and politicians and who they are, what drives and funds politics , what the end game is and what a president is for. I’m not trying to be cynical here, (well) ..but what was it someone once said? Put not your hope in princes? Something like that. It’s in some book I read once.