Wanted: A few stand-up candidates

By David S. Broder
WashPost
Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Democrats seem determined to teach us the price of vacillation, while the Republicans are bent on instructing us on the rewards of obstruction. What a helluva choice awaits in the November election.

This is my sour August reflection on the two months of travel ahead of me on the campaign trail -- a search for candidates who may lift the gloom and restore some faith in the principled politics so lacking in Washington these days.

President Obama, who seemed to embody those hopes two years ago -- as did the man we knew historically as John McCain -- crystallized the disillusionment in back-to-back performances last weekend.

On Friday night, addressing a Muslim gathering in the White House, Obama was the eloquent espouser of high moral principle, arguing for the unquestionable right of a Muslim charity to build a community center and mosque in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center, site of the Sept. 11 massacre.

(More here.)