Poor, poor John Kitzhaber. He made a couple of mistakes (he
is only human, after all) and now we, as a mob state, are on the brink of crucifying
him. C'mon people! Have we not learned from our past? Lynching him now will
only turn him into a martyr and might create a foot-hold for the beginnings of
a cult-like following.
How dare we focus on his few human shortcomings. I have read
about prophets of God who did far worse things like committing treason and
censoring the press and we sing praises to them today. Clearly, Kitzhaber made
some blunders, which obviously demonstrates that he was only acting as a man
and not as the leader of our State when he did what he did. Instead of parading
his few flaws, we should only be acknowledging his three-term accomplishments
in healthcare, education, and economic reforms. We should just be looking at
all of the good that he is responsible for. If we only look for his mistakes
and the bad things that he has done, we certainly will find them but why should
we let those things define who he is and hold him so accountable when all of the
good that he did so glaringly outweighs the few mistakes that he made?
A little known alleged fact in this case that I am sure will
eventually come to light is that I have heard that Kitzhaber has lined up 11
witnesses (most of whom he is related to) who are willing to testify in his
behalf regarding his honesty and good integrity; 3 of which claim that their
testimony came to them in a vision... and everyone knows that visions trump any
cold, hard evidence that the devilish opposition might dream up.
My final point...
In his defense, I submit that some truth
is not very useful. The fact that he may have embezzled and misappropriated
state money is, at least in his eyes, truth that is not at all useful or faith promoting. We
should ignore those useless, demoralizing facts. We should doubt our doubts and not be so judgmental
and, most of all, we should quit researching and dwelling on his negative
history. "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." The
rest of us will go ahead and vote for him even though we previously knew about
the allegations. After all, the little bit of cash that he slipped under the
table to his girlfriend amounted to barely a ripple when compared to the grotesquely
obscene amount of money he wasted in the healthcare computer-program debacle...
and we forgave him for that and STILL voted him back into office. We went into
this with our eyes wide open so why are we picking on him and trying to hang him now?
