Category Archives: The Nation

Refreshing intellectual honesty

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In a professional sense, there is nothing I admire more than intellectual honesty. It is one of the reasons why I rail against political parties and ideologies, because they encourage people to approach an issue or event thinking, "What’s in this for me and my side?" or "How do I spin this to support my preconceived notions?" instead of "What’s really going on here, and what are its true implications, regardless of what I want them to be, and what is the best course for the greater good?"

This is human nature (in the sense that it is something that someone who wants to be a better person should strive to rise above). And the moment one declares a party affiliation or embraces an ideology, one has surrendered to the temptation to follow this easy path. That’s why I avoid doing those things (one reason, anyway). But am I immune to the pull of this corruption? Of course not. I make my living laying opinions out before the public, and it is in my nature as much as it is in anyone else’s to approach each issue or event wanting to find in it justification, rather than refutation, of the position that every reader knows I have taken. After all, a portion of my reputation, such as it is, depends upon my opinions holding up reasonably well to scrutiny. But my reputation is worthless if I’m not able to able to resist that temptation sufficiently to see things as they are.

Whether I succeed in that or not, I leave to others to judge over time. My purpose in this posting is to recognize such intellectual honesty in another writer.

I get so sick of both knee-jerk criticism and knee-jerk defense of what our nation is doing in Iraq, that when I see someone approach the issue in an open-eyed manner, it is refreshing, and renews my faith in the potential of the human race. So it is that I would like to bring this piece from The Washington Post to your attention. It is written by an expert (which I am not) who supports our mission in Iraq (as I do) and has done so since the start (as I have), but because he cares so much about the mission, is enormously frustrated with mistakes the Bush administration has made in this critical endeavor (as am I). So you might say I think this guy is intellectually honest because I agree with him (mostly, anyway). And you may be right.

But there’s one important way in which this writer is different from me — his son is a soldier, and "Before long he will fight in the war that I advocated…." That gives a particular urgency to Eliot A. Cohen’s soul searching. And his own display of honesty is all the more admirable because he has been identified, fairly or not, with a particular ideology. The piece is well worth the read.

Probably my favorite part appears at the very end. I include it here in case you have trouble getting to the link:

There is a lot of talk these days about shaky public support for the war. That is not really the issue. Nor should cheerleading, as opposed to truth-telling, be our leaders’ chief concern. If we fail in Iraq — and I don’t think we will — it won’t be because the American people lack heart, but because leaders and institutions have failed. Rather than fretting about support at home, let them show themselves dedicated to waging and winning a strange kind of war and describing it as it is, candidly and in detail. Then the American people will give them all the support they need. The scholar in me is not surprised when our leaders blunder, although the pundit in me is dismayed when they do. What the father in me expects from our leaders is, simply, the truth — an end to happy talk and denials of error, and a seriousness equal to that of the men and women our country sends into the fight.

Both the cheerleaders and those who are doing all they can to make public support for the war "shaky" should read this realistic assessment. Then they should drop their simplistic poses and think about how we proceed from here.

No sweet deal for the left

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This item in Monday’s Washington Post, which was eagerly brought to my attention by Lindsey Graham’s office, merely states what I have assumed from the beginning to be the truth of the matter: That the compromise forced upon the Senate by the "Gang of 14" was no sweet deal for the Democrats — at least, not for the ideologues on the left wing of the party.

I have been puzzled in recent weeks both by the ideologues of the right who have screamed bloody murder over the filibuster compromise, and by the liberals who warmly embraced it. It seems obvious that the terms the group agreed to, combined with the personalities involved and the political dynamics that made the deal possible — prevent a filibuster on a Supreme Court nominee for merely ideological causes. You’d pretty much have to have moral turpitude involved for this coalition to allow the Democrats to obstruct indefinitely. (I’m far from the only one who’s realized this. The New Republic fretted over the deal because they knew how it would tie liberal hands, even as Democratic Party leaders were crowing publicly about the compromise.)

Given that standard. I suppose we’ll have to brace ourselves for tales of porno-film watching and remarks about Coke cans. I’m certainly not up for that, but deal or no deal, I doubt we’ll ever have a reasonable, tasteful, restrained confirmation process as long as Roe v. Wade continues to force bitter political debate into this most unseemly of venues.

The robot begs to differ

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Associate Editor Mike Fitts and I had a long day Friday, as usual. One of many things we had to do that day was put out Sunday’s editorial page, which included my column praising Lindsey Graham (see previous postings).

When he finally dragged himself home, he found a phone message. It was a recorded voice (or as Mike put it, a "robot caller")  from a group called "The Judicial Confirmation Network." The message implored him to call Sen. Graham and tell him not to make a "secret backroom deal" with those "liberals" over the filibuster issue.

Remember how I mentioned in my column how the narrow interest groups on both sides have all but a handful of the Senate afraid to act reasonably? Well, this is one of them. The Democrats have the likes of NARAL, and the GOP has groups like this one. And that automated phone call Mike received is what they do to you if you dare to stand up them and act like a grownup.

Those robots — first they go around stealing old people’s medicine, and now they’re making crank phone calls.

A new U.S. Senate

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I ended my Sunday column with the sentiment that the 12 or so senators who have been trying to save the republic from a "nuclear" meltdown over judicial nominations were "heroes in my book," just for trying. (Note that I say "12 or so" instead of using the even dozen cited in the column because some reports indicate at least peripheral involvement in the negotiations by more than that number.)

Since writing that, I’ve thought of another way to characterize the small band of grownups who have been working so hard to avoid damage to the Senate and Mr_smith judiciary: They are models of what the Senate should be, and has too seldom been in recent years.

In fact, here’s a modest proposal: How about we just ditch the other 80 or so partisans, ideologues and spineless sheep who are willing to let their hallowed body charge off a cliff together, and start over with just the admirable few who have been willing to do the country some good?

One Washington Post story referred to them as the "gang of twelve," but trying to identify them is about as hard as coming up with consistent names for the 12 apostles by gleaning through the Gospels. Some names appear in some contexts, others in others. The one story I saw that specifically named 12 was by the Sacramento Bee. Here are the names:

But other stories refer to others, including:

Sure, some of these are folks who have done objectionable things in the past (although some, such as Sens. McCain and Lieberman, are consistent heroes of mine). And there are some otherwise good people among the sheep who are charging toward the edge of the cliff.

But for this moment, I choose to honor the 12. Or 15. Or whatever.

As for Messrs. Frist, Reid, and the rest … well, they’re so into partisanship, maybe they could find nice jobs at party headquarters, licking envelopes or such.