Mr. Smith, Mr. Obama, and Mr. McCain

Frank Capra's classic 1939 civics lesson Mr. Smith Goes to Washington seems as relevant today as it did just before World War II. Jefferson Smith, a naive boy scout leader from an unnamed mid-western state, is appointed to the U.S. Senate to be a tool of a corrupt political machine. Jeff's patriotic illusions are shot down by the press, the senate, his secretary, and even his mentor, the Silver Knight, Senator Paine. Once his secretary sees the light (read, falls in love with Smith), he smights the machine and cleans up Washington. Even in 1939 this was a fantasy. Today it is an absurd notion.
Parallets between Jimmy Stewart's "golly-gee" idealist Jeff Smith and Barack Obama, an attractive, smiling, intellectual but practical idealist are easy to sniff out, but Obama is no Jeff Smith. He's a shrewd politician who also happens to have ideas and ideals that may help our country in its time of crisis. Comparing Senator Paine to John McCain also seems too facile, but it is irresistable. Paine is a respected member of the old guard Senate who is being touted for the national ticket. Yet under his smooth veneer there is a man manipulated by forces he cannot control. He has lost his way and sold out to bigger interests. John McCain is a self-called maverick who has fought the Bush administration on some issues and condemned the extreme Christian right, but one would never know it now. In the fantasy of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, justice, tolerance, and freedom win out. How these values play out in 2008 will depend on whether voters want to believe in Smith's ideals or continue our current decline.