A Word Defined

After 22 years of reading case law and then not reading it at all now, I look back and recall very few significant phrases that stuck with me. The most familiar one is that a word is defined by the company it keeps. This concept can also be applied to what defines a man or a man’s character. A man is defined and judged by the company he keeps. Hugh Hefner is defined and judged by the company he kept, woman after woman. John Edwards like wise is now judged by the company he kept, while running for president and while his wife struggled against cancer. O.J. Simpson has, finally, been judged by the company he kept. The lasting stain on Bill Clinton’s presidency also reflected the company he kept in the oval office. So doesn’t the company Senator Obama kept define him and his character?

Who are these men: Tony Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers? How has their relationship with Senator Obama helped to shape the man who seems to be so at ease in dismissing these relationships as peripheral to his true character. A relationship does not end simply because it has been disavowed or broken off; the effect remains for years, even for a lifetime. The influence that one person has upon the character of another is not so easily cast off simply by reading a press bulletin or making a public announcement of disavowal or condemnation. That influence lingers in the mind and the stronger of the personalities knows this and will stimulate that dormant influence to active receptivity. The word character is defined by the words which surround it, just as a man’s character is defined by the human influences affecting his psyche.  To say that a man has cast off an influence means about as much as a judge telling a jury to disregard a previous statement or testimony. The testimony has already had an effect upon the minds of the jury.

The record that Senator Obama is running on is also defined by the means by which it was implemented and those who leveraged their influence to help him. Just what did he achieve besides expending grant money and organizing communities? As I watch the loads of onions pass my house on their way to be processed at the produce warehouse north of Rocky Ford, I wonder what Senator Obama has produced, promoted, and marketed? Perhaps he carries with him the residual influence of the men who helped shape his true character and also define his political image. To see into the character of a man one must be able to observe and listen to the company he kept. Their words and deeds will tell you far more about the man than his own words would ever disclose.

From my corner of Main Street & Beech in Rocky Ford, CO.

Dr. K