As a serious history student, I frequently find myself drawing comparisons between current and historical events, people and societal trends. The conclusions warranted by this method are often offensive to those who suffer from the delusion that “things are different today.” But as our national politics slip beyond their previously explored frontiers of degeneracy, I find myself thinking again on the vast difference between a statesman and a politician.
Contrary to the opinions of much of the religious right, the distinction does not lie in the volume of one’s profession of faith. As a matter of fact, true statesmen have been found among the ranks of nearly every denomination of the Christian Church, among numerous false religions, and even professing atheists. Nor does the distinction lie in political creed – throughout history, true (though often mistaken) statesmen have defended forms of government ranging from absolute monarchy to utopian communism.
The difference is simple: a statesman is one who loves his country more than himself or his political affiliations. His goal is the good of his country, and his political positions and actions, however mistaken or uninformed they may be, are taken for that purpose. In a nutshell, his loyalty is to his country.
A politician, on the other hand, to the extent that he possesses that virtue at all, is loyal either to his party or to himself (generally some combination of the two). His positions and actions are taken with an eye to the advancement of his party and/or his own ambitions. He may now and then pause to consider their effects on the nation as a whole, but his first priority is to consolidate his own position against the efforts of the opposition.
The current antics of our elected officials on Capitol Hill and in the White House are a supremely disgusting illustration of the latter. Our representatives in congress are wasting their time debating and voting on a bill to increase funding for embryonic stem cell research even though they know it will be vetoed. They justify this exercise in futility by citing a need to put the President on record as opposing “the will of the people,” even though his position on this issue is already clear. Their real purpose, however, is to bolster the Democratic Party’s position in the next election. And taxpayers’ hard-earned money is being used to fund this charade.
The federal district attorney firings and the accompanying furor provide another example of shameless political gaming by all sides. It is obvious that the Justice Department made appointments based on political loyalties, though this practice is not new. It is also plain that they used the pretext of the war on terror to avoid the oversight, and presumably the criticism, of congress when making replacements. On the other hand, the self-righteous clamor of the opposing party seems carefully oriented toward the approaching elections, and their ethically laced demands for the Attorney General’s resignation are hollow at best. They know that replacing Gonzales would require confirmation hearings, and that those hearings would be an ideal venue for lowering this administration still further in the public esteem. Which is precisely why they want Gonzales to resign, and more to the point, is precisely why he won’t resign.
If there are any national issues that ought to be addressed without regard to party politics, the war in Iraq deserves to be at the top of the list. Yet no other issue is so politically charged at present, and American soldiers are currently being treated as pawns by the ass and the elephant alike. The invasion and occupation received bipartisan support until the dreaded threat of low approval ratings began to rear its head. The White House, being controlled by politicians (not statesmen) who are painfully aware that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster, has no choice but to “stay the course” until either conditions improve or a Democratic president arrives to take the blame for the consequences. Meanwhile, the Democratic hopefuls, knowing what awaits them if they step into the Oval office before the inevitable pullout, present a comical picture as they try everything short of funding cuts to convince the President that the troops should come home now.
The most ironic aspect of this circus is that the obvious constitutional option to end the war is to cut the funding, and that is precisely the option Congress is afraid of. To force the return of American troops over the President’s veto would place the blame for the ensuing disintegration of Iraq firmly on the heads of the Democratic leadership. But a pullout ordered by a Democratic president would yield similar results. Their only hope is to convince the current administration to accept responsibility for the failure of both parties, something the administration isn’t about to do. So the troops will stay where they should never have gone, while our leaders peer over their spectacles at the latest polling data and casualty reports as they desperately search for a way to leave Iraq without leaving D.C.
Contrast their behavior with that of Congressman Ron Paul, and one immediately recognizes the vast difference. Unlike the party faithful, Congressman Paul strenuously opposed the unconstitutional nature of the invasion. He spoke and wrote extensively on the dangers of empire building and the falsity of the various justifications for war. In doing so, he brought on himself the disdain of his colleagues and was icily ignored by the mainstream media. Now that he is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he continues to speak the truth on those issues that are most likely to prevent him from reaching the Oval office. Political pundits question whether he is “presidential material,” but the real problem is their inability to comprehend genuine statesmanship.
