Yesterday I was sitting in line for an hour, waiting to vote early here in Florida. We were at the public library, and while inching our way through the stacks to the front of the line, I read books to my daughter. One of her favorite series is the Berenstain Bears. I usually find the lessons heavy handed, but she just loves these books.
At any rate, the lesson in this episode, "The Berenstain Bears and Trouble at School," goes like this: when Brother Bear is out sick from school for a few days, he misses an important lesson at school, and loses his prime spot on the soccer team. He doesn't study the work that is sent home for him to review, and returning to school, he has to sit on the bench during soccer, then fails a test on the work he didn't study. He has to take the failed test home to sign, but he hides it and doesn't tell his parents. The next day he cuts school, and seems well on his way to juvenile delinquency.
While playing hookey, he visits Grizzly Gramps, his grandfather, who takes him to the neighboring swamp. There he shows Brother Bear a cart stuck in a muddy bog. He tells Brother that one day he made a wrong turn in the woods, but instead of admitting his mistake and turning back, he just kept going down the wrong path. Eventually he became stuck in the mud, and soon he was so stuck that he couldn't get out of the bog and had to abandon the cart. Learning from this story, Brother Bear admits his mistakes, and works to get back on the right track.
Reading this as I headed in to vote for Kerry, I found it a fitting allegory for the election. Why should we stay the course when we are almost already stuck in the bog? Why dig ourselves deeper rather than correcting mistakes?
If Bush can't admit and correct his mistakes, we will. His presidency is a mistake we must correct. Vote Kerry!
