In politics, there is an age old maxim that tends to ring true for most struggling campaigns: “If you can’t find anything BAD to say about your opponent… make something up!” For the record, asking them how long it’s been since the last time that they beat their spouse always seems to work. Today, however, as the political season is heightened by the epic struggle for delegates between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, in their battle to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, one begins to believe that perhaps this is the advice being proffered to the former First Lady, as she continues to play whack-a-mole on the Gentleman from Illinois’ head. Most specifically, “much to do about nothing” has been made of Senator Obama’s use of words, whether empty and his own or inspiring and someone else’s, to uplift his followers and respond to his foes who want to do everything they can to make sure he is hung by the tongue. Lest we forget that these were the same tactics employed when they asked President Bill Clinton, under oath, what the meaning of the word “is” is? (But I digress…) With that being said, however, this war of wits begs a question that deserves an honest answer:  Do words really matter?

            In his bestselling book, Words that Shook the World, author Richard Greene so eloquently inquired: “Why does the spoken word still have the power to move us? In part, I think, it is because so much of our public dialogue has been compressed into five and ten-second slogans. Hearing a well crafted, sustained piece of oratory is like tasting a five course meal for the first time after a lifetime of potato chips and Ring Dings.”  Greene continued to observe that words in a speech are not there simply for substance’s sake, but they ought to be used to “generate a feeling” that brings out the best in people. For you see, it is the use of words that have, throughout the history of humankind, moved mountains, parted seas, averted conflicts and started wars. It is the words of faith that sustain us and the words of the Constitution that govern us, and, without them, our lives would be chaos. So how then, does the use of inspiring oratory somehow become a bad thing in this year’s presidential contest? When partisan political hacks use them in a slight of hand to distract us from what’s really going on. Any way you cut it, whether expressed in the flowery language of William Shakespeare who declared that, “something is rotten in Denmark,” or the down home homilies of the neighborhood drunk in front of the corner store who warns us that “something in the milk ain’t clean!,” I “smell a rat tending towards tyranny” and I  won’t believe the hype.

            It has often been said that a sinking man or woman will drown even their rescuers in their efforts to stay afloat. For our good friend, Senator Clinton, who appears to be desperately chasing windmills and the shadows of primaries past, I remind her that “objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.” For Senator Obama, the democratic standard bearer who has been called everything from a plagiarist to a Muslim child of God (as if something were wrong with that), I hasten to remind him that “when you wallow with dogs, you get up with fleas.” It doesn’t matter what words they use to call you, it’s what you answer to that counts.

“Sticks and stones may break your bones…” But then, again, those are just words.