"It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just our thing," said Gerald Cox in regards to electing the same old cookie-cutter candidates to the office of president of the United States.

"And then when our children are all grown up," writes Cox, "we tell them not to believe in men like Mr. Obama. And while we'd like to elect a man like Mr. Obama, we live in a country that doesn't."

Therein lies the argument of a loser and a quitter.

Please, do not misunderstand me. Gerald is anything but a loser or a quitter as anyone would gather from his superb writing and articulate personality. No, what I am speaking of is his disappointing political outlook, as outlined in the waggish style of evaluating Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the presidency that Gerald followed and that is rapidly gaining popularity.

Gerald's humor is the same that Jon Stewart uses every time he refers to "Obamania" while playing celestial choral music on set to sarcastically signify God's personal deliverance of a political savior in Barack Obama. It is the same humor that makes me chuckle every time Smathers or I comment on the fervor of Students for Obama, or every time I remark on the divine glory that seamlessly emanates from Obama press releases.

But this humor is easy, it is lazy, and it is shabby. It is the kind of humor that exposes a sad reality about our collective state of mind: we are afraid of ourselves.

Indeed, ourselves.

Whether it's me, Gerald or Tucker Carlson, we construct an implausibility to Mr. Obama because we see in him a change that we believe is too different and too difficult to enact in ourselves. We are like the person who told himself he would go running this morning but was too lazy to get up, and now sits at an ice cream shop making fun of the runners who go by in order to appease his self-reproach. Meanwhile, he stuffs his face with the same, old vanilla soft serve that he later loathes every time he looks in the mirror. But he is too afraid to change, so he declares superiority above the concept of change.

The fact of the matter is that we don't tell our children to stop believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy — they figure it out for themselves.

Instead, a more proper analogy for our country and its political trepidation would be a child who has never ceased believing in these mythical figures. Who has gone through life believing in what he wants because it is too hard to face the truth, too hard to change, too hard to grow up and face a scary reality.

Furthermore, we are a narcissistic, egotistical and stubborn society of adults. We refuse to believe in a hero because we feel it will reflect on our own insecurities and we refuse to face our own needs because they require change. We call ourselves pragmatists and realists as an excuse to hide from change we say, "will never happen" — as if change is beyond us. As if change is guided by a mysterious third party; in the process, denying our own free will within a democratic system.

We declare socialism and communism and ignorance. We laugh at a call for change or a "sappy editorial" as a sign of weakness and intellectual otiosity. But in the process, we sink deeper into fear. We wrap our minds in a circular reasoning that makes it impossible to change and "unreasonable" to want to change.

We create the false dichotomy between heart and mind, and then choose the latter because we do not trust our instincts and our desires. When in reality, our hearts and our minds have always worked best in conjunction, and remain the only combination that best evaluates our needs as a society and as individuals.

Yes, Barack Obama is a hope monger. But so are you.

We are creatures of reason and hope and progress. And it is not Mr. Obama who's guiding principle is a fantasy reminiscent of a mythical character, it is the seasoned Washingtonians and self-proclaimed realists who have lost touch with reality and paraded it as experience.

Ask yourself not whether a heroic figure "exists," but whether you want one to. Ask not if there have been a number of politicians who have lead with staunch honesty and undying hope, because we know they have been few and far between. Instead, leave your ego and your fear at the door and ask yourself if that is the type of leader you truly want.

You might just find that Christmas come early next year.