A Low Degree of Equanimity

Equanimity.

About 20 years ago, my boss at the time recommended me for a promotion.  A partial basis for his recommendation was that I possessed, in his view, a "high degree of equanimity."

I read that and thought, "Wow, that's great!  Who would have ever thought I would have a 'high degree of equanimity'?"

And then, about 2 seconds after that, I realized I didn't know what the word meant.  So I looked it up.  Turns out this is a fancy word used to describe a person who exhibits 'grace under pressure'.  Cool.  I'll take it.

Since that initial exposure to 'equanimity', it has become one of my favorite words, mainly because it turns out pretty much nobody else knows what it means, either.  I can only conclude that this particular word is not a standard feature in high school vocabulary curricula.  

For a while back in the early '90s, I'd toss the word into columns here and there just for fun.  But then I thought, what's the use in that?  I mean, I'm trying to get a point across in these things – generally speaking, of course – so what kind of sense does it make to use words that people aren't going to know?  It doesn't, so I quit doing it, at least consciously. 

I do still use it in business memos from time to time, with mixed results.  Back in 2004, I used the word in a memo that was distributed to the executive team of the company I worked for at the time.  The next morning, I noticed a reply had come in from the company's CEO. 

Now, for a guy in my position, attracting the attention of your CEO can either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the context.  In this case it was hard to tell, because the note read "You are the first person I've ever seen use the word 'equanimity' in a business memo.  I'm impressed.  Don't do it again."  He was just joking.  I think.

I bring this all up because it occurred to me during the last few weeks that our current President, Barack Obama, is not in possession of a 'high degree of equanimity'.  He often appears sorely lacking in this quality, in fact.  This reality becomes especially apparent when the President finds himself without the crutch of his near-omni-present Teleprompter.

We saw a great example of this just on Saturday, in fact.  At a townhall meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, the President became flustered when a woman complained about the myriad tax increases contained in his healthcare nationalization law, complaining that "we are already over-taxed".  In response to this question that his trusty thugs, er, aids had clearly failed to screen ahead of time, Mr. Obama launched into a rambling filibuster that went on for 2500 words and lasted more than 17 minutes.  This answer was so extraordinary in its disjointedness and lack of logic that even the liberal Obamatons who run the Washington Post felt compelled to publish an article dedicated to it in the paper's Sunday edition.

Then there was the interview on Fox News with Brett Baier, the first interview ever conducted with this President in a truly journalistic manner, i.e., an interview in which the questions were actually tough, and the person asking them was willing to follow up when the President refused to answer directly, or did not know the answer.  In this interview, one or the other was pretty much always the case.  It became readily apparent that the President did not want to directly answer questions about what was actually in the healthcare legislation, and in fact that he did not even know what was actually in it.  He became ever more testy as the interview when on and he was caught in a seemingly endless series of prevarications and information voids.

No doubt that will be the last interview Mr. Obama ever grants to any media source that has not agreed to serve as a member of his propaganda bureau.  He has since gone back to conducting cozy puff pieces on NBC and CBS in which he is shown playing basketball, and taking questions about how his wife maintains her buffed arms, and how his daughters are adjusting to life in Washington.

Faced with tough polls in the wake of the healthcare nationalization vote showing that upwards of 60% of the population disapproves of the rank atrocity, the President has lost all semblance of grace.  The speeches delivered at a seemingly endless procession of staged townhall events have taken to sounding more like Comedy Central monologues than presidential addresses.

As the November elections grow nearer, with no sign of the polls presaging a massive repudiation of Democrats around the country moderating, one senses a level of near-panic setting in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The President needs to work on his own equanimity, because the pressure will only get worse from here.