I had an interesting conversation with a cab driver on the way back from work Tuesday. While bringing the book No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens back to residence for some reading, I decided to ask the driver what he thought of Bill Clinton. From what I had already read of the book I gathered that Hitchens did not have a high opinion of Clinton. He argued that the failings of his personal life could not be separated from his public life, and that Clinton frequently used public acts, such as missile strikes and foreign policy announcements, to hide his private acts. I do not know whether Hitchens’ argument holds water, but it is interesting to consider.
Interestingly, the cab driver did not answer my question directly, but talked about something probably more important. He tried to express how it is very difficult and perhaps unfair to judge people in such high positions as harshly as we normally do. He told me a saying from Lebanon, where he was from, that we ought to remember that they are acting in that time and place as president. They are explicitly elected to make tough decisions, and judging them harshly for making those decisions is probably unfair. He presented an interesting flip on the Thomas Jefferson quote: “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?” Except in this presentation, he asked me whether we found angels in the form of the people to judge kings.
This is important to keep in mind with the presidential election. Partisan and unperceptive people felt that their candidate of choice won or presented better policies in the recent foreign policy debate. People who were actually listening to what was being said would have notice very few differences in what was actually being said. Patriot Acts, NDAA, Gitmo, drone strikes, and the like have all been expanded under Obama, things to which his supporters were violently opposed under Bush. If Romney is elected, I doubt that would change. When I am at my most petty, I accuse Obama supporters of some kind of amnesia starting in 2008. When I am honest with myself, I realize that I am not sure I would act any differently if I was in Obama’s shoes. There is just so much we do not know, and so many things not happening in the world because of the actions of people who will never be known.
This is what someone like Max Weber is trying to get at in “Politics as a Vocation”. There seem to be two ethics or poles that animate a politician. We have a conflict between the actual results of actions, and doing the right thing. Can good come from bad, and bad from good? In politics, the smallest taxation and the largest war are matters of violence. A good politician is in the terrifying position of having to please everyone, do the right thing, and get a good result while using this unwieldy and morally questionable tool. It is an incredibly difficult position to work in, and is not for the meek. Perhaps I misunderstood the message of the cab driver, or Weber, but I began to sympathize with those who govern us. I think with all the above in mind, we can properly understand the third presidential debate, the position these people may find themselves in.
