The Secret Hearts of Politicians

BlaiseP says:

I grow exceedingly tired of all this crap about Contradictions and Secret Beliefs.    C’mon, get real for once, folks — did you ever get into a situation with a bunch of preconceived notions and come out the tail end of that situation a changed person, considerably less doctrinaire about that sort of thing?

Yeah.  Happened to me, more than once.   More than a hundred times.  All my precious ideals about justice and the Right Way to Do Things got smashed into those little shards of pottery the archaeologists find in their sifting screens.   They don’t even bother keeping them as souvenirs, much less reassembled for some museum display. They sort out a kilo or so and give them to a pottery expert so he can help date the layer.   That’s it.

Most of those preconceived notions came to grief when I was obliged to deal with people I couldn’t control, which in my case is just about everyone else involved.   Things don’t get done my way and if I want to stay billable, I’ll have to live with what other people arrive at via whatever ham-handed methodology they wanted to use.  Everyone in the workaday world understands this problem.   You’ve got three options.   One, put up a big fight on principle and quit.  Two, go along with every stupid thing they say, no matter how unrealistic.   Or three, work within the boundaries of the possible, making the best of the situation. knowing they’ve brought you into that conference room for their own reasons, most of which are about getting your stamp of approval on their idiotic plan.

Though it might seem Option One is the most dangerous, simply because it’s suicidal, this is not true.   Option One lets you walk away.   It’s Option Two that you ought to fear.   Option Two puts you in the trick bag.   While you were nodding and taking notes and not pointing out why some unrealistic scheme couldn’t work, the guys who proposed it assume they’re on the right track because you didn’t say “Hey, if we do this, we can’t do that” or something to that effect.   Silence gives consent.   Those people don’t have to solve the problems.  Once that meeting’s over and implementation begins, they think everything is cool, and that’s what they’ll expect back. And they will hold you to every stupid promise.

So Obama hasn’t driven into the wall over same sex marriage.  He’s done what he can.  He got the military out of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, itself a half-a-loaf piece of legislation back in Clinton’s day, a piece of legislation his enemies used against him, time and again.   Marriage isn’t the province of the executive branch, the states grant marriage licenses.   I’m upset with Obama for not closing Gitmo.   But let’s not say he didn’t try.   The Congress wouldn’t let him.

American kids don’t get much in the way of civics classes any more, it seems.   The President sits in his office at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, pretty much alone when it comes to legislation.   He can propose legislation and sign it.  Oh, there’s the Vice President, who can cast a tie-breaking vote, so he’s not completely alone, but it’s the President’s signature that completes the legislative process.   There’s also the signing statement, which Bush43 used a lot, Obama has used it a fair bit but nothing like Bush43 did.

Whitman said:
The past and present wilt–I have fill’d them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

Sure, the President contradicts himself.  He’s not only full of multitudes, he represents and embodies multitudes.   Seen aright, he is the servant of the people but more than that, he is the man we elected to guide the country into an uncertain future, armed not with a laundry list but with his own conscience and wisdom.

Edmund Burke once said  “your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”   Blame Obama for the fact that justice has not been completely done if such is your conclusion.   I think he could close Gitmo without Congressional approval.   But don’t blame him for changing his mind on same-sex marriage.   He’s done as much as is politically possible.   He may yet do more, given more time and political capital.Report