The military intervention in Libya and how it seems to undermine the idealism that the President offered in the 2008 campaign ultimately shows the underlying issue with politics: It's still full of politicians.
I honestly don't know were I in that position (and there's a reason that I do not go into politics) whether I would have deployed the U.S. military might in what is a civil war, and anyone who claims it would be a simple decision is fooling himself, but it does seem like the present mistake is that two and a half years ago Obama made many people think that he was not a politician, too.
(Not me, but I do believe a fair number of the others who voted for him were caught up in what were, by any measure, spectacular campaign speeches.)
Governing requires politicking, and it always will, and the most effective contemporary campaigning technique is to make oneself seem like one who abhors politics and would not be political, but all that does is cause those who were caught up in the idealism be hideously disappointed when the unfortunate reality of what politics must entail comes to the fore.
If I were ever to run I'd just be up-front about that, and thus I'd have no chance of being elected. Heck, I wouldn't even have a chance of getting any backing to conduct the campaign to even be on the ballot.
Of course, given that this keeps being the case, the larger failure is that the voting public gives any credence to the things politicians say to get elected. We have to pretend they mean what they say when we step into the voting booth, but we really should know better when they get into office. We don't have to like it, but the dismay only makes us look naïve.
We should be better than that.
I honestly don't know were I in that position (and there's a reason that I do not go into politics) whether I would have deployed the U.S. military might in what is a civil war, and anyone who claims it would be a simple decision is fooling himself, but it does seem like the present mistake is that two and a half years ago Obama made many people think that he was not a politician, too.
(Not me, but I do believe a fair number of the others who voted for him were caught up in what were, by any measure, spectacular campaign speeches.)
Governing requires politicking, and it always will, and the most effective contemporary campaigning technique is to make oneself seem like one who abhors politics and would not be political, but all that does is cause those who were caught up in the idealism be hideously disappointed when the unfortunate reality of what politics must entail comes to the fore.
If I were ever to run I'd just be up-front about that, and thus I'd have no chance of being elected. Heck, I wouldn't even have a chance of getting any backing to conduct the campaign to even be on the ballot.
Of course, given that this keeps being the case, the larger failure is that the voting public gives any credence to the things politicians say to get elected. We have to pretend they mean what they say when we step into the voting booth, but we really should know better when they get into office. We don't have to like it, but the dismay only makes us look naïve.
We should be better than that.
I think most campaigns today revolve around the candidate promising entitlements to various special interest groups. Can you imagine a politician today saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"? Not that I'm a fan of Kennedy, but he was one of the last to actually demand anything of the populace. I think Truman or Eisenhower were the last presidents with any real balls (Truman more than Eisenhower). Maybe Teddy Roosevelt. Sure, Reagan was wonderful, but he did a lot of dumb things, like shutting down the domestic oil business in favor of buying cheap foreign oil, and like throwing all the mentally ill people out of the institutions, creating the homeless problem we have today.
ReplyDeleteI think you said if a politician wants to be president, they're automatically disqualified. I totally agree.