Flip-floppers, consistency and the American way

FRANK MIELE

Last week, I made the shocking revelation that once upon a time I had - eek! - changed my mind.

It was done partly in fun, because I thought it was about time that people who try to pigeon-hole me as a Bush lackey found out that four years ago, I had been hoping Democrat John Edwards would unseat the uninspiring chief exec who still haunts the Oval Office like a pale ghost of former presidents.

But it was also done partly as a cautionary tale - to make the case that - most importantly - we don't know what is in each other's souls, and secondarily that we can't really anticipate how changed circumstances will affect our own deeply held views.

So yes, although I have supported President Bush in the war on terror more or less faithfully since 2001, I voted for Al Gore not Bush in 2000. And when I thought Bush was losing the war for the hearts and minds of the American people, I saw Edwards as a charismatic leader who might be better able to sell the need for continued action against Islamic terrorists. Predictably enough, these revelations pleased neither Republicans nor Democrats, as they now know that I cannot be trusted to follow a party line. And because Edwards eventually proved himself to be a pandering politician who would say whatever he thought was necessary to feed his ambition, I also had to publicly acknowledge my own bad judgment and return back to President Bush as the only, if not the best, hope for victory in the war on terror.

Of course, if I were running for public office, such a confession would earn me the dread title of "flip-flopper." Poor me. Flip-floppers are considered dangerous folk. Mitt Romney, for instance, changed his mind about abortion after becoming governor of Massachusetts and has never lived it down since. Mike Huckabee tried to give a tuition break to a couple dozen illegal immigrants when he was governor of Arkansas, so according to his opponents, he can't possibly be honest when he says he's for strong border security and no amnesty today.

The examples are endless. From what I can tell, being a flip-flopper largely means you had the audacity to hope you could use your own mind to reach a conclusion based on current data, instead of regurgitating what you said yesterday under different circumstances. Considering the flak they get for sticking their head out of the trenches, maybe the politicians are right to just do what is politically expedient and not follow their own conscience. After all, getting elected is easy; being faithful to yourself is hard.

And not just the candidates go after each other for the slightest inconsistency, but the media's punditocracy then goes even further and establishes "truth squads" to "keep 'em honest" - as if the nation could handle honesty along with its daily dose of sleeping medicine.

If we were being honest, we would have to ask what kind of a president we want, and not just which candidate we think will win. If we were being honest, we would have to ask ourselves if we want Rush Limbaugh or Tim Russert picking our presidents for us, or whether we should squeeze into the election booths beside them, so that we may have a small say in our own future. If we were being honest, we would have to admit that "truth squads" are just "spin doctors" without the medical degree.

The truth, it turns out, is more complicated than a 30-second sound bite. You might even say that the truth has as many sides as a politician who hasn't seen the morning polls yet. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said of people who try to conform themselves to the general opinion: "This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right."

Goodness, that reminds me of a politician or two, but why bother to name them when their own words condemn them much more convincingly than anything I could say. It also is worth remembering when we judge politicians that being consistent is not the greatest virtue, or as Emerson more famously said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Emerson died 125 years ago, but we can be glad he lived at all. If you want some clarity about the American character, not to mention the human condition, you could do worse than to open a book of his essays and take a deep breath of inspiration. Imagine how the mass-media pundit poobahs would holler if word got out that we do not have to get all of our information about the meaning of life from cable television!

And, of course, if we did not read Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" from which that famous quote comes, we would not know that the full saying is: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Yes, it is the politicians and the pundits who insist on making consistency a big thing, but there is one thing politicians and pundits cannot do, and that is to make the world around us unchanging. So if the world changes, so too will I change, and I will not worry too much about what anyone else thinks about it. The same cannot be said of most politicians, so if you find one who seems to be really alive, who is not afraid to speak his mind, or even to admit that he has one, you might consider yourself lucky.

Emerson warns that men live in terror of being inconsistent "because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them," but he encourages each of us to rise up and be ourselves.

"Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? … Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. - 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' - Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

I think what we are all looking for as we scan the horizon for a true leader is someone who will risk being misunderstood, someone who will say what he or she thinks without consulting a poll, someone who is spontaneous and original and not just a suit of clothes filled up by hot air, someone who (as Emerson said) will "affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times."

I've followed politics closely since at least 1968, and I can assure you there are such worthies, though they are few and far between, and none quite as perfect as our hopes for them. You can start the list with Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy from that tumultuous year, then move ahead from one lost cause to another to see what happens to those who follow the beat of a different drummer.

My own conscience led me almost invariably to support candidates who were either outside the mainstream or promised to shake it up. George McGovern, Morris Udall, Jerry "Gov. Moonbeam" Brown, John B. Anderson, Pete DuPont, Gary Hart, Joe Biden, Jack Kemp, Bruce Babbitt, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Steve "Flat Tax" Forbes, John McCain circa 2000, even Jesse Jackson somewhere along the way - my chosen standard-bearers were all doomed to failure, partly because they were rebels, but also partly because to a greater or lesser extent they never quite got the knack of consistency.

With a track record like that, I suppose it's kind of surprising that I am not supporting Ron Paul this year. If he weren't such an isolationist, I might be tempted, because many of Paul's "kooky" ideas are just what the doctor ordered, but I am wise enough now to know that no candidate of Paul's persuasion will ever win the White House (and if he did, certainly not live to talk about it).

Which brings us to this year's election - certainly one of the most interesting and competitive races in many years, full of sound and fury and possibly signifying quite a lot.

But one of the most important lessons I have learned in politics is to doubt everything, even my own judgment. There was no way I could have figured out in 1980 that Ronald Reagan would not just be a good president, but a great one. So how can I possibly know whether Barack Obama would inspire a generation like John Kennedy did? Or whether Mike Huckabee would be able to deliver on his promise to demolish the IRS?

For many of us, the current field of candidates remains a jumble, and things could shake out in a number of different ways - some encouraging, some frightful. Which for me, at least, makes it worth pondering.

But as I watch the turns and tides of the next few weeks or months, I'll pay heed to one last piece of advice from Emerson, who encouraged us all to be our own masters and slaves to no one:

"A political victory, … or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

. Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com.