Jennifer Wilbanks for President

Some of the qualities I feel are essential in President of the United States are clearly absent in our current Commander in Chief. Qualities such as wisdom, accountability, humility and accepting responsibility for ones actions are at the top of the list. Honesty, compassion and a willingness to acknowledge ones weaknesses and work to improve them are other qualities that I feel should be ranked rather high on my list of wishful thinking.

The reasons I think President George W. Bush is lacking in the aforementioned qualities are plentiful and obvious to anyone who has an open mind and hasn’t spent the last five years living in a cave, cut off from the rest of the World. For the record, I can’t recall a President in at least the last quarter century that exhibited all of these traits and can only think of one or two World leaders that, in my lifetime, displayed most of these qualities.

Why we, the people don’t demand that those basic qualities are present in our elected leaders will be one of the great unsolved mysteries of our generation. Or so I thought, until the other evening, when out of cyberspace the answer began to appear to me in a fashion I can only assume was similar to finding the image of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. While surfing the daily headlines on MSNBC, I came across a video clip of a woman mowing the lawn. I remember feeling bad for her because her mower kept quitting and she had to keep re-starting it. I didn’t even wonder why that video with no accompanying narrative was newsworthy as I continued on my quest for knowledge gained through information from cyberspace.

The next morning as I was driving somewhere and listening to Nashville’s WSM-AM radio, the subject began to gain clarity in my possibly chemically damaged mind. The newscast at the top of the hour, from FOX Radio News (We report, you decide), reported that “The Runaway Bride,” a.k.a. Jennifer Wilbanks began her community service in her hometown of Duluth, Georgia by mowing the lawn at the county offices. The newscast went on to describe in detail how journalists and news crews lined the streets across from the county buildings to document this historic event.

As I pulled up to the sign I order my Sausage McGriddle from, I simultaneously yelled at the radio, “Who the $#%@ cares!!?” The sign meekly asked, “Excuse me, Sir?” I apologized, placed my order and proceeded as directed to the first window to pay for my order. As I approached the first window, I didn’t realize that I was still audibly berating pickup’s radio by asking, “Why in the $#*& is that considered news?” Again, the person at the window who is trained simply to take money, issue change and direct me to proceed to window number two, sheepishly asked, “pardon me, is everything all right?” By the time I arrived at the window which distributes my breakfast, I had worked myself into a rabid frenzy that the average innocent bystander would either be terrified by or sadistically amused.

As I pulled to the edge of the parking lot to re-gain some degree of composure, my complicated thought process began to organize the information I had received and proceeded to make sense of it all. The video clip I had seen the pervious evening was, in fact, video of Jennifer Wilbanks performing her community service. As I recalled admiring her patience and persistence each time her lawn mower died and she pulled the string to restart the motor, it now occurred to me how humiliating it must have been to know the World was watching. It also occurred to me how pitiful it was that the eyes of the World found this newsworthy or even entertaining. And I began to develop a great respect, if not reverence, for Jennifer Wilbanks of Duluth, Georgia.

By the time I finished the last bite of my morning sustenance, lit a Camel Light and proceeded on my morning journey, my dysfunctional mind had begun to formulate a plan to get Miss Wilbanks elected to public office. While my plan is by no means complete, I offer the following justification for consideration by the readers of this in supporting my suggestion.

First of all, Jennifer Wilbanks exhibited wisdom on April 26th, 2005, by instead of bowing to peer pressure and the expectations of societal norms, she removed herself from all outside influences to make a decision regarding her planned nuptials. Granted, the method in which she removed herself was a bit extreme, or at best dramatic, but realistically, she hurt no one but herself. These actions, in my laic opinion, were much wiser than entering into a commitment that she had reservations about.

On April 29th, she telephoned her fiancé, John Mason from a pay phone in Albuquerque, New Mexico and claimed she had been kidnapped. She also called 911 and claimed she had been abducted and sexually assaulted. Within hours, upon further interrogation by authorities, she admitted to making up the abduction and assault story. If a current or recent political figure were the subject of this incident, a full board of inquiry and possible independent counsel would have needed to be convened. The fact that she ran because of pre-marital jitters may have never been determined. Her same day admission is evidence of being accountable for her actions.

From the first media showing of her rescue/capture, the formerly wide-eyed girl next door image was replaced on late night talk shows and newscasts, by the image of a figure cloaked in a multi-colored afghan blanket that someone’s color-blind grandmother knitted with love and pain-staking care. These images displayed humility. Furthermore, as she mowed the lawn last week, shaded from the Duluth sun by a ball cap that said “Life is Good” and sporting an international orange safety vest, Jennifer Wilbanks displayed class. As America’s highly trained and professional media broadcast her punishment to the eager masses, and the instrument of her punishment, the lawn mower, kept stalling and she diligently restarted it, Wilbanks never once kicked the mower, cussed at the media or gave up in frustration and cried. I don’t know that I could have displayed that degree of class.

On June 2nd, 2005, just days after being charged, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to a felony charge of filing a false police report. As part of her plea bargain, she was sentenced to two years' probation and 120 hours of community service (including mowing lawns and cleaning toilets in government buildings) and was ordered to pay $2,250 in restitution to the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department. She also agreed to pay more than $13,000 dollars in restitution to the City of Duluth for expenses related to the search effort that she never even asked for. This is undeniable evidence of accepting responsibility for her actions.

So while the segment of the World’s population that has never made a mistake, and if they did would make excuses transferring blame, takes pleasure in watching Jennifer Wilbanks serve her debt to society, I’d like to publicly say that I admire and respect this doe-eyed lady from Georgia. Because of understandable reasons, she made a decision that was foolish and poorly thought out. Even though she didn’t request world wide press coverage and local and national search efforts, she accepts that her actions caused them, has apologized profusely and will make it right with society. She’s waded through the muck that the media has spewed and is still able to hold her head high.

The media and American public insisted on having Wilbanks head on a platter. Why don’t they demand the same accountability of their elected representatives? If all of America’s politicians could exhibit the same qualities that Jennifer Wilbanks has, I think our nation would be a better place. That’s why I nominate and would support Miss Wilbanks for public office.