One of the Proverbs in the Bible encourages conciliatory behavior toward one's enemies because, "For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord will reward you."

In our own parable, we have two men. One  - the foolish man - who ignores the wishes of the voters of his party, abandons the party and runs against its candidate. He then gets angry with his fellow senators, who support the candidate of the party supported by the people who elected them.

Putting the petty and the personal above principle, our foolish man then devotes himself to tearing down the party and its candidate for president, sinking to a level of dishonesty and vileness.

The other man - I am still not sure if I can call him the wise man - welcomes him back into the fold (it would be mixing my parables to say he is welcomed as a lost sheep).

I don't know if Obama will be rewarded for this excessive act of forgiveness, but I hope our foolish man at least has enough character to be truly shamed.