I'm not a politician. I have neither the temperament or the kind of drive that is a prerequisite for success as one. But if I was one, I would recognize that I had to pick my fights carefully. I would recognize that sometimes I would have to make choices dictated by political reality that I would not make if I was unconstrained by them. I would understand that in order to be strong on X issue, I have to be weak on Y issue.
Politics is not a place where idealists thrive, and that's the way it always will be. It's a place where you need sharp elbows and to throw them while maintaining a smile plastered on your face. It's a reality where there are no real friendships, just alliances of interest ("If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," Harry Truman famously said.), where the "public statement" the preeminent tool to blow smoke to hide from the public what is really going on. It's a place where consistently speaking the plain truth is a ticket to electoral failure.
So is it any wonder that the people who rise to positions of leadership in such a world are those who don't see there's much of a problem with that? Is it any wonder that those who thrive are the ones who are most skilled at gaming the system, at lying and manipulating? Is it any wonder that the majority of those who are attracted to politics are really driven by their own careerist objectives rather than the common good?
Am I saying that this is a black and white reality and that there are no gradations? No, but I think there are people who have been mostly defeated by the system and those who mostly haven't been. But I think most of us can agree that guya like Russ Feingold and Jim Webb (regardless whether we agree with them on the issues) define the brighter, principled end of the spectrum while Cheney, Rove, Delay define the greed and power-driven darker end. People like Lieberman, Clinton, Pelosi, Reid are somewhere in the middle. Obama? Let's be realistic. It's too early to tell. He has proven nothing. He is mostly potential that may or may not realize itself.
The typical politician in the Beltway is not completely defeated, just mostly defeated by the system. Occasionally one of their number, a guy like Chis Dodd for instance, shows he has a little spirit left in him as he did when he filibustered the FISA bill. But mostly pols once they enter the Beltway come to accept that greed and power drive things in the real world, that idealism is for fools, and integrity and principle are just just empty political slogans. Anybody who stands on principle in the "real world" is grandstanding for political reasons because there are no reasons except political reasons.
I believe Obama aspires to be one of the rare politicians who seeks a strong foothold on the brighter end of the spectrum, but he has not yet established himself there. My argument for him against Clinton was that we know that Clinton has proven herself to be one of those who is mostly defeated by the system, and that because Obama has not yet been defeated, he was worth taking a chance on, that the worse we would get with Obama is someone like Clinton. And on Friday with his statement of support for the FISA/telecom immunity bill, that's what we got. Calculating mediocrity typical of those who let the system beat them down. This is not an issue on the same level as his decision to opt out of public financing. That one doesn't bother me nearly as much as this one. This one transcends the exigencies of the political campaign and its tactics. This is one on which you can't compromise even if you lose.
Obama is not a finished product. That's what makes him so interesting. The guy still has a soul, and the very nature of someone whose soul hasn't shriveled is that he or she is an ongoing life project. Such a person will make mistakes, but he stays alive to the degree that he finds a way to not be defeated by them, no matter how serious they might be. A sure sign of someone who is soul-dead is his inability to admit his mistakes and "repent," to use an old-fashioned word. So I expect mistakes, but I'm more interested to see how they affect him if he rigidifies into a creature of the system--as we see with pols like McCain or Clinton--or if he stays supple and alive. (My take on Karol Wojtyla is that he was such a live soul before becoming Pope John Paul, but in the end was defeated by the Vatican system. But that's a post for another time.)
So it will be fascinating to watch Obama's agon in the White House if he wins it as I think he will. Will the Clintons' skepticism about Obama's idealism be proven correct? Will the Beltway system defeat him as easily as they predicted? Will he be ground up and spat out to look like every other politician that ever went into the system and rose to a position of power--or will he find another way? With other mostly defeated politicians like Clinton or McCain it's not even the kind of question that you'd think to ask. But Obama is a project, and the outcome is anything but certain. He may disappoint us, but he may not.
Obama's position on the FISA/telecom amnesty bill was a setback and a missed opportunity. I don't know his real reasons for supporting this bill--maybe there are valid ones that I'm unaware of--but the precedent this bill sets is very dangerous. This is not the kind of thing anybody who aspires to citizenship on the brighter end of the spectrum defined by principle and integrity compromises on. Or so it appears to me at this point. This is not one of those lose the battle but win the war kind of issues. It's far more important than that, and it demands more from him than his rubber stamping the Dem leadership's position. I'll be interested to see how hard he works to get rid of the immunity elements in the bill. If he succeeds in that, it would insure a presidential veto, and we're back to square zero.
P.S. I'd like to compile a list of pols from either party who we can agree are more on the brighter side of the spectrum than those on the darker side--or lost in the middle. I'm not looking for flawless here, and I'm not looking for ideological purity, but a consistent record of principle and integrity that makes them better than the typical mostly defeated pol in the middle of the herd. If ambition, greed, and expediency are the primary motivators 2/3 of the time, you're on the Cheney/Rove side of the spectrum. If motivated 2/3 of the time by civic- minded principle and personal integrity, on the Feingold/Webb side of the spectrum. Any nominations? Particularly Republicans. I think Ron Paul and Chuck Hagel should get a nomination, but I'm hard put to think of anyone else.
P.P.S The point I want to make here is that when people think about bi-partisanship and compromise, they usually have in mind the ideal situation in which reasonable people with high integrity sit down and have a principled argument about a particular issue. In reality that hardly ever happens within the Beltway system because the people having the conversation are rarely people of high integrity or principle. They are hacks serving interests that have nothing to do with their high-minded rhetoric. Most of them are not worth listening to because their public statements are designed to obscure rather than to reveal their true motives. So I'm interested in identifying the people who are worth listening to no matter whether you agree with them or not. I'd be interested in a debate between Ron Paul and Russ Feingold, but not in one between Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi.