Maybe We Should Have Read The Tao Te Ching Before The 2008 Elections...

...it would have given us some insight into the man we were electing.

From the 63rd stanza of the ancient Chinese text (whose name can be translated as either "The Way", "The Way of Virtue", "The Way of Power"):


夫輕諾必寡信多易必多難是以聖人猶難之故終無難矣


In English:

He who promises lightly must be lacking in faith,
He who thinks everything easy will end by finding everything difficult.
Therefore the Sage, who regards everything as difficult,
Meets with no difficulties in the end.


The first sentence I consider to be fairly prophetic. The second I will employ as a gauge to weigh the seriousness - and the character - of whomever claims to be qualified to lead this country past 2012...