I disagree, that the President was diminished by self-control

  

  Oh, my goodness. I was embarrassed

  last evening, by the quick reactions

  of the enthusiasts, to the effect

  that the manic challenger in the

  evening's Presidential election

  'debate' was more impressive than

  the reserved incumbent. It was never

  so clear to me before, how scribes

  treat our politics as entertainment,

  as if Callas were out of voice (more

  than her style anticipated, that is)

  in a new production of Manon Lescaut.

  That would be regrettable, of course.

It's as if there were no point to drawing reference to the fact, that he is the President, and people do know him. On the 'strength' of his conduct this evening, I'm certain that this still cannot be said of the challenger, an unbecoming anxiety's reinforcements aside. I am confident that anyone who respects his vote, and can distinguish it from a ticket to the sadomasochistic tragedies of Puccini, will have no difficulty in finding the President's unflappable consistency to have been exactly suited to his recitals of what he has done, what he believes, what he expects and what he intends; and that the cascade, not to say blizzard of novations of himself offered by the pretender, are of a piece with his established cynicism.

To anyone who has been watching this Presidency with a fraction of the attention for which our scribes are paid to do it for us, the spectacle of more flailings against this holder of the office will also be utterly of a piece - with the character of his position, in a time of unseemly polarisation. It may well be, given the influence of any concert of reviews, that voters will imbibe the belief that the President fared poorly. But that will mean, that the President fared poorly, as we have seen in his legislative conflicts throughout his term of office. It will not mean that he is electorally impaired.

On the contrary. The challenger's task was far from met, in persuading voters to adopt a selection of him-self, in an etch-resketched profile of remixed posturing and deception, as the justification for an aban-donment of a relationship of endur-ance. This characteristic of the President's plainly earned respect, for his embrace of the nation's ordeal with patience of no compla-cency, endows voters with a feeling of trust which cannot be disturbed by a hectically showy night on the stage with a settled phony. It is easily compatible with resolve to stay the course, to concede that the President may have 'lost' in the kind of show which is of interest only to quar-relers. This is not what he does.

           The professed 'Conservative' commentator,

           George Will, has theorised that the Pres-

           ident may enjoy re-election because of re-

           luctance to compromise what the electorate

           senses as its own racial achievement, in

           his election four years ago. How little

           that philosophy's claim to grasp human na-

           ture has ever been deserved. The resistance

           is that of a historical tide of struggle,

           much deeper than novelty, to be sundered 

           by a shallow phosphorescence in its way.