A Mixed Bag...

Lately, as I've been observing the great debate, I've found myself sharing Peggy Noonan's sentiments in her Wall Street Journal column last week when she said that it's hard to write something new. Things that are happening now have been happening for last several months/couple years...just more so.

That said, I do have a few nuggets of observations that might be worth consideration:

1) There will be "draft Hillary" clubs or organizations popping up all over the country. Yeah, I know she declared about a year ago that she will not run for public office again. She may very well have meant it, and still think it. But, one only needs to Google "Hillary 2012" to find out how many are going to prod her along. And these won't just be those who Hillary loyalists, either. It will also be many of those who are now suffering from buyer's remorse with President Obama. And she's popular, too. According to some polls, the most popular politician in America.

This will be interesting to watch, as this has happened in the past. While Eisenhower didn't come in to challenge a sitting Republican president, he was the reluctant candidate who only got in because of the overwhelming number of "draft Ike" clubs that popped up all over the country, and because he feared that no other Republican would win, and another Republican loss would essentially dissolve the party.

Hillary may be in the similar position. I can already see the speech: "the overwhelming call for me to serve has caused me to consider the ramifications of a 1-term Democrat president bookended by 2, 2-term Republican Presidencies. I cannot let that happen. Therefor, I reluctantly, but wholeheartedly, declare myself a candidate for the...."

But, she won't pull the trigger yet. There has to be overwhelming evidence well into the election season that President Obama is toast...and she'll challenge.

2) As a former Congressional staffer, I shuddered for my former colleagues who were interviewed for this Politico article. We've all been there - "we" being congressional staffers. We all worry our boss will say something stupid, silly, or just plain inaccurate. Damage control and spin are the verbal gymnastics that staff have to engage in when the boss just gets something wrong. Fortunately for me, I can't think of too many times I stood in the back of the room with my palm planted firmly on my forehead, muttering something about "cleaning that one up after the meeting."

And its not that I can't sympathize with the bosses. They read a ton of memos about every conceivable issue, they are constantly in meetings, going from one to the next, with certified smart people doing a fire hose information dump on them in 5 minutes or less on the most complicated issues ever to face that field of study. The mind numbing minutia these Members of Congress are exposed to is...mind numbing.

The good bosses, however, have two things: 1) a self awareness of what they do understand and know of assurity...and what they don't know; and 2) the ability to admit they got it wrong when they got it wrong. One might call the latter "humility".

Michele Bachman has a checkered past with inaccurate statements. And I've got no beef with someone confusing the mountain load of factoids they have read in the past week. But this episode with her relaying quite a stunning accusation about a cancer treatment medicine's side effects that she heard from some lady smacks of what one of her former staffers characterized as "inventing something out of whole cloth" in order to score points. Reading this article about staffers who have told of their experiences...it all rings true. The things they say, and the way they said them...I've seen this stuff happen. I've seen the blank stare in an elected officials eyes when they didn't have a good response at their disposal, and just made something up. And each time, I saw the sinking expression and depressed body language of the staffers who knew they'd have to clean up the mess.

I worry about someone like this on our side of the aisle getting a prominent place in our party. The old saying "he's a blowhard, but he's our blowhard" doesn't extend this far, in my opinion. Which is a shame, because I think she's angling to be Mitt's VP running mate, and she'd be good at it (a good partisan, with great party-base street cred)...except for the aforementioned achilles heel.

3) Lastly, I can't pass this one up. Remember the urgency of President Obama's speech the opening night of NFL a little while ago? "Pass this bill!" Repeated over and over again. Then the road show. "Pass this bill today!" Repeated over and over again. One was left with the impression that the bill was just sitting in the House and Senate chambers waiting to be voted on, but for the lazy Congressmans' inability to get on the subway cars to take them from their Congressional office buildings to the bowels of the Capitol, just a short escalator ride away from some elevators that take them up to the 2nd floor of the Capitol, and just a 10 step waltz to the chamber floor where they can yell "aye", then take the 10 steps back to the elevator, down the escalator, to the subway cars, to the congressional office buildings, where they can curl up on underneath their desks and resume their naps. That's the impression he is leaving everyone.

But again, I can't pass up experiences I have had. I wondered if there was actually a bill. Many times before a President (not just this one) would fist pound and announce a new and vital initiative, but then leave it up to Congress to figure how to write down and make it work. So, I was curious, did the President actually write a bill, and get someone in Congress to sponsor it, introduce it, and make it move through the legislative process.

Answer? Nope. Exhibit A: The "American Jobs Act", as he called it has been introduced, but by a Republican. Huh? "How could that be?", you ask. Well, a certain House Republican named Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas beat him to the punch. After the President's speech before the Joint Session of Congress, Mr. Gohmert probably thought he'd have a little fun with the President and beat the President to the punch, introducing his own "American Jobs Act" (HR 2911). I don't know if the bill is any good, but this is classic Congressional hijinks. And the President's urgent bill? Well, as the LA Times indicated, "it seems the urgent jobs bill hadn't actually been written yet but should be ready in a week or two. When the laughter died, the White House said on second thought the legislation would be ready for a photo op the next Monday. Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we've just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won't really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet."

As I said, I couldn't pass this one up.

The Anatomy of a Train Wreck

It was hard to not notice the train wreck on the news today for Congressman Weiner. As I watched that hideous thing unfold, I was watching a guy (could have been any guy...or girl) who came to that heart-sinking realization that no matter what he did, he was not going to get out of this jam. The decisions he made, freely and of his own volition, and a little bad luck (some might call it karma) invariably led him to this moment of crisis in his personal and public life.

And while it is supremely easy to pick on this guy, and his particular actions, I'd rather focus today on a couple broad principles that I gleaned from his press conference.

First, he alluded to this activity as a personal failing that he had paused on occasion to consider the wrongness of, but proceeded anyway. I found that remark absolutely fascinating, and filled with information about the nature of this guy's problem.

Personal failings: we all have them. Weaknesses, I mean. If we're all really honest with ourselves, we all have things about our personalities, attitudes, habits, etc. that we would rather no one else find out about. Some of these are different in levels of social acceptability and severity. Pride, exaggerating (i.e. lying), lust, greed, laziness, gambling, etc.

If we're "good", we're working on those weaknesses. Actively resisting them, and perhaps even taking steps to turn them into strengths. We may even enlist the assistance of close ones to help us work on them. If we're "not good", we give into them. Actively working to improve our weaknesses is a purposeful decision, and often a difficult task. Giving into them, in my observation, is rarely a conscious decision, but rather the result of a series of seemingly insignificant compromises, rationalizations, and deferments of serious soul searching. In the short run, improving ourselves is hard, deferring or giving in is easy. The long run results, however, are always brutally obvious.

We are a habit forming people. If we indulge in good behavior, we tend to continue that pattern. If we get bumped off that track and indulge in our vices and weaknesses, we tend to continue that pattern. The difference between the two is that, again, the former is harder in the short term, whereas the latter is easier. So, taking the path of least resistance leads us to bad habits which, of course, lead to long term habits (a.k.a. addictions; be they habitual, substance, or psychological addictions) and brutal consequences.

So, on the level of a guy indulging in a behavior that he knew was not good, and getting caught in doing it, lying about it, humiliating himself, his wife, kids, family, friends, staff, etc.; on that level, as I watched him bear it all out in the public square, I felt bad for the guy. Everything he said about his sense of shame, his panic upon discovering that he had been discovered - that all struck me as brutally honest, painful, and true.

However...

Second, the statement: "I take full responsibility for my actions" followed on in the next breath by "I will not resign." What does taking responsibility for one's actions really mean?

I learned it in the simplest of terms when I was a kid: if I stole a candy bar, I'd pay for it. If I messed up the living room, I'd have to clean it up. There are a couple steps in these examples: confession and restitution. Paying back the price of the candy bar, and cleaning up the room. Those forms of restitution are fairly obvious.

But what about those actions that damage things less tangible, like the trust between a husband and a wife, an elected official and his/her voters? How does one assign a value of restitution to those intangible damages? That's a little more challenging, I think.

I think there are two ways of approaching this one. The questions one has to ask are: "Am I sorry I got caught?" or "Am I sorry I did what I did?" If you're sorry you did what you did, the self-imposed price of restitution is high. There's no easy away around it, nor does the offender look for one. They seek out all the possible ways in which to take on the consequences, and they take them on to an almost self-sacrificing degree.

To the person who got caught, and is sorry they got caught, when there's no other way around it, they'll admit it, apologize for it, then try to walk away from it all hoping there are no real consequences other than embarrassment.

Congressman Weiner did the latter, and I feel sorry for him and especially his wife and kids. Because the degree to which he is truly sorry for his actions (as opposed to getting caught), he will want to pay the price of restitution. Reconciling with his voters - whom he lied to - means resigning, in my mind. More importantly, part of the price of restitution is taking his weakness on, head on. He punted on accepting the consequences of lying to his voters, so I think he'll punt on dealing with this weakness. Which means he'll still indulge (perhaps in other forms), and he and his family will suffer as a result.

That's a shame.

"Government Mandates" and Shallow Thinking

During my time in college, I was fully engaged in the passion of political debates. I remember going to my first college republicans meeting excited to hear the debate on the club's platform. The first proposal out of the box was to "eliminate all entitlement programs immediately." I listened with amusement as folks were advocating this position with zeal, passion, and fervor.

I was blown away.

Setting aside my belief that there will always be a few folks out there in need of some level of government assistance (e.g. folks who aren't able to provide for themselves, have no family to help, and aren't plugged in with various churches and community non-profit organizations); setting that aside for a moment, a categorical elimination of all entitlement programs was simply ridiculous. It would never get votes on the floor of the House and Senate, and signature by the President. It would never happen. Yet these college republicans were spending so much time and emotional capital on it. And the proposal was adopted.

I walked out of the meeting never to return.

This college-era recollection was brought to my minds as I caught coverage today of the press gaggle around Mrs. Palin at her bus stop just a few clicks away from Mr. Romney's announcement party. Mrs. Palin repeated several times that while she conceded that then-Governor Romney's health care plan for Massachusetts was better than a federal plan, her opposition to "Romney-care" was based in her opposition to "government mandates." She repeated this non-qualified opposition to government mandates several times.

I kept listening for some sort of qualifier to this position, and each time she repeated this belief (or talking point - because it was repeated so often in the exact same words), she never hesitated or qualified it.

The irrationality of this thought process is as mind boggling as those college republicans. If she opposes the plan because of certain components or features of it, I can understand that. I can even understand opposition to the plan because she doesn't think government should be involved with health care at any level (which, if I'm generous, I could assume is her actual belief). But her opposition - stated over and over again - is rooted in her unqualified opposition to government mandates.

I think just about everyone on the conservative side of the great debate would agree that, in general, government mandates should be alternatives of last resort in most cases, or alternatives of no resort in some cases. However, her apparent belief is that there are no cases in which a government mandate is good.

Safety standards for highway overpasses and bridges? Registering with Selective Service? Drivers licenses? These are all government mandates. And I think they're good ones. There are a laundry list of other good and worthwhile government mandates. There are also a whole slog of counter-productive government mandates. But listening to Mrs. Palin's unqualified opposition to them reminded me of the lunacy I witnessed at that college republicans meeting.

Now, it's certainly possible that she does believe there are some government mandates that have value, but she should have said that, and made her point of opposition specific to government health care.

So, either she's a lunatic on the level of a person the person who thinks they are a poached egg; or she didn't take the few moments necessary to think through the implications of the talking point she crafted and repeated over and over again at this particular bus stop.

Either way, I'm blown away.

Rome Burned While Nero Fiddled

Of course, Nero didn't sit idly by while Rome burned. There is ample evidence that he did as most chief executives are supposed to do: he directed, marshaled resources, etc. But, at some point, the rumor started that he was seen playing his lyre (a stringed instrument), and a rumor was all that was needed to condemn Nero to history's waste bin as the leader who created the cliche. The same cliche, I might add, that was applied to President Bush when the photo was released of him peering out his Air Force One window looking down at New Orleans after Katrina had hit.

But in that case, President Bush was there, on scene - albeit, above the scene.

This is one of those pictures, and one of those moments, that will go down in Presidential history as one that should not have happened. Certainly I don't begrudge a guy making picks for March Madness, and there's certainly nothing wrong with taking advantage of the perks of the Presidency to get onto ESPN and talk about something non-work related and fun.

But, juxtaposed to Afghanistan, Libya, Japan, staggering annual budget deficits, the economy, a stubbornly high unemployment rate, high fuel prices raising the cost of living, etc, etc, etc., I'm sure some of his staffers have their palms planted firmly on their foreheads thinking, "this is not the picture we wanted out there."

Commander-In-Chief as Cheerleader

It has struck me over the last year and a half, or so, that we just don't seem to be hearing much about the war in Afghanistan. During the previous presidency, I can sort of understand that, because the media (and public) seemed to be concentrated on the war in Iraq. But now, Iraq has more or less settled down, major combat operations have come to an end, and our collective national attention can refocus on Afghanistan.

But we haven't. Why?

It seems to me that during the Bush Administration, during good times in Iraq, and bad, President Bush was constantly talking about the war. This seemed altogether reasonable as the people's support of the war waned prior to the success of the surge, and, as President, he followed the strategy of many other US wartime presidents by getting out in front of the people, and spoke forcefully about his decision for sending troops to war, and cheering on the hard fought successes of the troops on the ground (and in the air).

This was a constant drum beat from President Bush. It was so often and so repetitive that even George Bush supporters were pleading for a change in script, a change in talking points, a newer explanation, or something different. But he continued on, unrelenting in his message. This could have been helpful to the cause, or perhaps hurtful - I'll let each of you judge for yourselves.

President Obama's approach to the war in Afghanistan seems to be the opposite. He seems to be utterly, and thoroughly silent on the matter. This is not to say that he mourns the loss of troops any less than President Bush, nor is it to say that he isn't taking the war any less serious than his predecessor. Maybe, maybe not. I have not been granted the opportunity to peer into his soul and converse with him on the matter, so I don't want to put myself into the dangerous position of judging his soul.

Who knows? Perhaps he hasn't said much on the matter (since his own surge speech) because the public seems to recoil when they hear the horrors of war, and it is difficult to maintain support. Sometimes, I confess, I could see how it is better that the gritty details of the war are not known in realtime, and by speaking on the topic less, people tend to have less curiosity about it. Can you imagine if we had the realtime gritty details of WWII like we do today? Good grief, we never would have kept public support beyond the North African campaign.

However, I can observe that there are certain results from keeping very quiet about the war in Afghanistan. Public support doesn't get lost by observing disappointing set backs in the field of battle, it gets lost by disinterest. The next (of many) domino that falls after that is that all of those soldiers, and their families, who are fighting and dying for the cause of liberty...are forgotten.

I'm reminded of Rudyard Kipling's words:

"For God and the Soldier we adore,

In time of danger, not before!

The danger passed, and all things righted,

God is forgotten, and the soldier slighted."

A Marine recently informed me that the "Darkhorse" 3rd Battalion 5th Marines have lost 12 Marines in 4 days. Their names are: Justin Allen, Brett Linley, Matthew Weikert, Justus Bartett, Dave Santos, Chase Stanley, Jesse Reed, Matthew Johnson, Zachary Fisher, Brandon King, Christopher Goeke, and Sheldon Tate.

A President must weigh whether or not the spotlight he can throw on a war (and all that goes with it) will, in the end, help or hurt the war's cause, and then pursue the path that will help the most. I don't know what President Obama's calculus is in his relative silence. But in the meantime, let us not forget these Marines, and the many other folks in the military who have fought, bled, and died for freedom.

***************************

Update: A "3/5 wife" notified me that "the Darkhorse Marines who have given their lives in Afghanistan recently are: LCPL Sparks, CPL Cain, PFC Dew, LCPL Rodewal, LCPL Vinnedge, LCPL Catherwood, LCPL Ceniceros, LCPL Lopez, LCPL Boel,; SGT Tawney, LCPL Pearson, LCPL Broehm LCPL Braggs, 2LT Kelly, LCPL Stack, 1LT Donnely IV, SGT Abbate, PFC Rusk, CPL Wyatt, SGT Peto, LCPL Maldonado, LCPL Corzine & CPL Nguyen."

A Life-Altering Realization

I worked in Congress for 10 years. The US Senate, to be specific, for Senator Gordon Smith, Republican from Oregon. I had a unique experience, I think, as I started off as an intern in Portland (the mothership in the State offices), got a full-time gig in DC, then eventually came back to work in the field. I had hit all parts of the organization (Portland state office, DC, a satellite field office in Pendleton, and again in Portland). It is extremely rare for a congressional staffer to experience all of those types of offices (DC, State, and Field).

As an intern in Portland, and a Constituent Services Representative in DC, and as a field rep in Pendleton, I answered phones. Most people don’t call their Congressman’s office to say, “you’re doing a good job.” I can understand that. If you look at the approval ratings of Congress, Congress has the remarkable ability to not shine. So, based solely on the polls, one would not hold out too much hope that the next phone call into a Congressional office would be a complimentary one.

For the most part, the phone calls were, nevertheless, polite and straight to the point. “What is the Senator’s position on the bill?” “Please tell him to vote no” or “yes on the bill.” Every so often (I’d say 2 in 5 calls) someone would want to rant. Okay, fair enough. While I wouldn’t take notes on the lengthy monologues, I would seek for the salient points and mention those to the boss. Yes, I actually did. We kept a daily tally of “yes” and “no” vote requests on certain bills, and passed them onto the boss at the end of each day. But Gordon actually waltzed into the front office (in DC) from time to time, plopped himself down on the couch in front of my desk, and asked me what folks are calling in about.

We'd go over the popular stuff of the day, but sometimes what people had to say resonated with me, and I discussed those things with Gordon. I imagine many other members of Congress have similar practices of getting up to speed on constituent feedback as he did.

Once in a great while, we’d get threats. People would say, “people like you should be ________”; and they’d go on about being “drawn and quartered”, etc. But, those were vague, indirect threats. I got one very specific threat: “I will shoot you when you walk out of your building today.” That was a little disturbing because it was a Virginia phone number on the caller ID – not some guy 3000 miles away in Oregon. In that case, I contacted the Capitol Police, notified them of the threat. They got back to me and indicated that the guy had made similar threats to other offices earlier in the day. They dealt with him - although, I’m not sure how.

But, we’d get threats, and it was not uncommon. We knew that most of them were hollow threats, expressed by folks genuinely frustrated by what they thought was government gone awry. We never knew, however, when one of those threats would be delivered upon.

Then I got the call to work in the field, Pendleton followed by Portland. This was a whole ‘nother experience, because when people called up and made threats, they were close enough to deliver on those threats. Shoot, they could be outside the office door on their cell phones. In the field, you just don’t know. On the Hill, I was 3,000 miles removed from a threatening person, behind several layers of security in the Russell Senate Office Building that kept us relatively safe. In Burns, at Dairy Queen grabbing a Dilly Bar with my boss, no such comfort. No security. It was constantly in the back of my mind.

There was more than one occasion that I thought I would have to get between my boss (always calm and respectful), and those who seemed poised to fly off the handle (sometimes the most effective way to send an irrational person off the handle is to be calm and respectful). Fortunately, I never had to do anything physical to protect my boss (although, there was the time – in my private life - I had to tackle a person going after another public official).

As I reflect back on those threats, and potentially physical/violent occasions, it seems to me that they always began with a disagreement on policy. I learned from my boss (and truly, I did learn this from him, because before I met and observed him, I didn’t do this) that you can disagree without being disagreeable. Before, I found the arena of ideas as the great arena of zero-sum game. I win, you lose. You win, I lose. It was fun, it was a competition of words and wits. I was good at it.

But, then I got an internship working inside the beast. I discovered really quickly that there are two types of people in politics: noisemakers and lawmakers. So it is with life, I believe. There are those want to win the “contest” simply so that they can win (and get all the things that come with it: applause, kudos, attention, etc.), and then there are those who want to make an impact. I realized that I was, up until day 3 of my internship, a noisemaker in politics (and in life). I wanted to win. It was a matter of personal pride. If someone else won, I lost.

So I watched my boss, I took a step back and looked at politics from the inside out and had a life changing realization: I want to make an impact, not necessarily make noise.

Sure, you sometimes have to make noise to make an impact. But making noise was no longer the end goal. Making the impact was. From then on, I noticed that I spent more time listening to other folks than talking. More time picking their brains for ideas and nuggets of value, than telling them all about the holes in their logic. I still spent time espousing my ideas and philosophies, but from that time forward, it was more of an exercise of thinking out loud, trying to bounce ideas off other folks to see if certain theories I held actually survived the scrutiny of others. Before, I was less interested in whether or not I was right or wrong (although, I thought I was right), but more interested in making sure the other person didn’t discover the hole I knew I had in my own logic. I wanted to win, for winning's sake.

This paradigm shift spread from my political life to my personal life. Slowly, over the months and years, I began to smother the somewhat instinctive impulse to deal with friends, family, and associates who didn’t agree with me in a combative way, and began to look for the common points of agreement, and the win/win. The battle lines I would draw on matters in my life became fewer and fewer, resulting in fewer and fewer battles. Certainly, there are certain things I won’t budge on. Moral issues are those for me. But, I’ve learned to resist the impulse to charge into battle, and have embraced the “is there any other way to deal with this?” practice to conflict.

I wonder, now, what I would be like today, if I didn’t have that example of Gordon back then, 12 or so years ago (and, for the record, there were other fine examples - but for some reason, his is the one that clicked for me). Would I, by now, be so fed up with politics, politicians, and government that I’d be placing angry and, perhaps, threatening calls to Congress? Today, I look at that possibility with some level of horror. However, if I’m really honest with myself, I might just have to admit that I was on the path then to becoming a permanently frustrated and hopeless citizen in a country that just didn’t see things my way. Dangerous things happen with folks lose hope.

I’m glad I changed course. I’m a better and happier person for looking for the win/win as a position of first resort, instead of only seeing the win/lose approach as the position of only resort.

As one who has lived on both sides of this political fence (noisemaker vs. lawmaker), I say that life is much better as a lawmaker. Folks are your friends, not your adversaries, you can disagree with folks without being disagreeable, and, generally speaking, you get a lot more done at the end of the day (for your cause), than if you are simply out there to win the contest.

If you see life as a zero-sum game, take a moment, look around you, and find someone who always seems to be looking for a win/win. These are the folks who probably mystify and irritate you. But talk to them. Pick their brains. Sincerely try to figure them out. If you do this, you may just have the life-changing attitude conversion I had 12 or so years ago. And there will be less vitriol in our political (and personal) dialogue.