"O Captain! My Captain!" On Political Duty, Courage and Leadership

Yesterday the words kept coming to me: "O Captain! My Captain!" Perhaps it
was the two Lincoln biographies that faced me from the shelf, or the new and
promising movie about him. Or perhaps it was just the dejection, the
dispirited hangover of a political campaign season marked to an unnerving
degree by an abundance of purposeful mendacity and misdirection of the
electorate. Perhaps it was also the polarized, polarizing and dysfunctional
public process of government that has costumed itself as serious
representatives and servants of the public, and more unlikely still, as
statesmen. Sadly, precious little resembling public responsibility, courage and honor is to be found in our politics or governance.

More likely it was all those things, and a book of "best loved" poetry
recently read also facing me from the shelf. But the current state of
government affairs, bereft of political courage and leadership as it is, was
doubtless weighing heavily on my subconscious. (Yes, Mr. Obama offers promise, but promise as yet unfulfilled.)

So why wouldn't Abraham Lincoln come to mind, even if indirectly? Something
more like the leadership of Lincoln is what we hope for in our too quiet
desperation. It is what we need.

"O Captain! My Captain!" was Walt Whitman's poetic tribute to the fallen
President Lincoln, to the end undaunted in his duty, and likely first in
political courage among our presidents. It is only possible for me to
consider today's American leaders in the same discussion with the good Mr.
Lincoln for the purpose of pointing out how far they fall short of the
mark.

With that introduction, Mr. Whitman's poetic lament:

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
            But O heart! heart! heart!
               O the bleeding drops of red,
                   Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                       Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
            Here Captain! dear father!
               This arm beneath your head;
                  It is some dream that on the deck,
                     You've fallen cold and dead.  

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
             Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! 
                But I, with mournful tread, 
                   Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
                       Fallen cold and dead.

How distant the time and how far our lost wandering from the leadership of
Lincoln to what pretends to political leadership today. We too should loudly
lament its passing. And we should demand better.