"You ever hear of Oliver Twiddledee?"

The titular question is one that my old man used to ask me when the going got tough and he could see that I was thinking of packing it in.

"You're going to give up, huh?"

"I don't know, dad.  This is hard!"

"Well, did you ever hear of Oliver Twiddledee?"

"No."

"That's because he gave up."

Sure, after many repetitions it became tiresome, like being informed that your current act of toil will "build character", but I still remember clearly the impact of hearing the punch for the first time.  Even as a young child, I fully understood the implication: It's far better to lose than to quit.

The reasoning behind this claim is simple.  Every contest has to have winners and losers, but it's often the case that the only thing separating the two is a bad call, a stroke of luck.  Sometimes the losers play just as hard, if not harder, than the winners.   And the two have something very important in common: They came out and played the game until the final horn sounded.

No one likes to lose, but that's the risk you take in playing.  Win big, lose big.  But losing isn't all it's cracked up to be.  There's a valuable lesson to be learned in losing and it's a lesson that quitters can't profit from.  Learning to lose is an art and a craft.  It takes hard work, determination, commitment.  In fact, especially when you know you're down, it takes these things in greater measure than is required by those with the wind at their backs.

Quitting requires nothing of us save the will to talk away.  Quitting is the low pressure system in a storm of possible decisions.  All pressure pushes us toward concession.  My legs are burning and I can't breathe any harder.  I can't remember that equation and there's only five minutes of exam time left.  I'm the head executive of a state in the most powerful nation in the world and people are scrutinizing my behavior.

You get the idea.

It's hard, sometimes impossible, to respect a quitter.  The loser, in contrast, is easily respectable.  The loser still put in the effort.  The quitter just quit.

If there's one things that Americans love, it's gumption.  Tenacity.  Resolve.  We're all too willing to root for the underdog, for the player with the unconventional story and approach to the game.  (Actually, I'd have to say that this isn't a bad description of Barack Obama.)  We want to see ourselves in them, to believe that we've got a shot at the title though we may not be the biggest or the fastest or have the most resources.  If there's one key characteristic to the American narrative writ large, it's the belief that there's an infinity of wealth to be mined in the often cold, hard tunnels self-determination and perserverance.

Sarah Palin just showed us who she really is.  After months of listening to her tell us all about who is and who ain't a real American, she's shown us that she doesn't know the meaning of the word.  There isn't an ounce of gumption in her.  She's all bluster, no backbone.  And much will be said to try and hide this fact, but I trust that even her real Americans will smell the quit on her.  No rhetoric can paper over that stench.

The old man will be three years gone this October, but I'm still constantly amazed by his wisdom.  It's tough not having him around, but it only makes me work harder to delve into my memory and seek out the good, honest truths that he worked so hard to put into me.  If there's any justice in this world, then my father will be vindicated and the half-term governor from Alaska will go the way of good old Oliver.

Good lookin' out, pops.

Good luck, Ms. Twiddledee.