January 6, 2009--Citizen Caroline
Our nation’s founders did not envision that we would be governed by a class of career politicians. In fact, they warned against it.
The constitution they fashioned was laced, they thought, with enough checks and balances so that emerging America could avoid slipping into an oligarchy or be dominated by a permanent aristocracy. They took various steps to insure that the new country would not come to replicate the fate of the tired and corrupt European societies they had fled and abhorred.
In place of career politicians they thought they were creating a government that would be made up of citizens who would take a leave from their jobs and lives, ''lend'' their experience to the business of governing, and then return to private life. George Washington foremost, but among many others, exemplified this kind of citizenship.
The system they created was certainly far from open and democratic—most Americans were not able to vote or participate directly in governing. Left out glaringly were non-land-owners, women, and of course slaves.
But still they saw and cautioned against the dangers of a professional class of political leaders. If this were to be allowed, they worried, it would spawn a culture of access, influence, self-interest, and corruption.
On full display as recently as yesterday was how far we have drifted from this ideal.
Two or three cases in point:
In a surprise move, President-Elect Obama nominated Leon Panetta to serve as director of the CIA, the agency that caved in to the Bush administration when if came to assessing the likelihood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then later, during the war, took the lead in torturing enemy combatants. Perhaps to bring a fresh approach to cleaning up the CIA and ultimately restoring its standing and morale, Obama selected someone from outside the agency who has a strong track record of leadership and administrative experience.
Seemingly surprisingly his appointment was immediately resisted by the two leading Democratic senators who provide congressional oversight of the CIA—Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein.
These two senators who for years sat on their hands as enablers while the Bush administration perpetrated what many feel were war crimes (using torture on prisoners of war is a crime), in their statements of resistance to the Panetta appointment said less about his lack of intelligence experience than, with royal egos on full display, about how upset and offended they were that they only learned about Obama’s intentions from an article in the New York Times. (Linked below.)
And when Obama, showing better courtesy, went to Capital Hill yesterday to meet with Senate and House leaders about his economic stimulus plans, anyone versed in reading body language could see written all over her how upset Nancy Pelosi was to have to share the Democratic spotlight with her party’s new leader.
Her frozen smile said it all—Here I was the country’s leading Democrat, always turned to by the media as the spokesperson for the opposition party—the clear counterforce to George Bush (and by the way enjoying every minute of the attention)—and now along comes this very junior senator who the public loves and who will get all the adulation . . . .
And then, in contrast, we have the opposition to the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. There is a chorus of hypocritical voices from other pretenders to that assignment. We paid our dues, members of New York’s congressional delegation are saying, by serving term after term in the House of Representative and thus are entitled to be considered. What experience does she have that comparably prepares her for this high office? This smacks of royalty, they complain, and is not what our founders intended.
There is some point to that—the inherited benefit she has of being JFK’s daughter—but they are blinded by the facts of their own politician lives to the larger civic truth: that they are more royal than she.
She, better than they, fits the founders’ concept of the citizen-politician. At this point in her life, after raising a family, writing books on constitutional law, and serving on various philanthropic and non-governmental boards, she is seeking to lend her service to her country. This does not guarantee that she will be an effective senator, but isn’t it just what Jefferson intended?
The constitution they fashioned was laced, they thought, with enough checks and balances so that emerging America could avoid slipping into an oligarchy or be dominated by a permanent aristocracy. They took various steps to insure that the new country would not come to replicate the fate of the tired and corrupt European societies they had fled and abhorred.
In place of career politicians they thought they were creating a government that would be made up of citizens who would take a leave from their jobs and lives, ''lend'' their experience to the business of governing, and then return to private life. George Washington foremost, but among many others, exemplified this kind of citizenship.
The system they created was certainly far from open and democratic—most Americans were not able to vote or participate directly in governing. Left out glaringly were non-land-owners, women, and of course slaves.
But still they saw and cautioned against the dangers of a professional class of political leaders. If this were to be allowed, they worried, it would spawn a culture of access, influence, self-interest, and corruption.
On full display as recently as yesterday was how far we have drifted from this ideal.
Two or three cases in point:
In a surprise move, President-Elect Obama nominated Leon Panetta to serve as director of the CIA, the agency that caved in to the Bush administration when if came to assessing the likelihood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then later, during the war, took the lead in torturing enemy combatants. Perhaps to bring a fresh approach to cleaning up the CIA and ultimately restoring its standing and morale, Obama selected someone from outside the agency who has a strong track record of leadership and administrative experience.
Seemingly surprisingly his appointment was immediately resisted by the two leading Democratic senators who provide congressional oversight of the CIA—Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein.
These two senators who for years sat on their hands as enablers while the Bush administration perpetrated what many feel were war crimes (using torture on prisoners of war is a crime), in their statements of resistance to the Panetta appointment said less about his lack of intelligence experience than, with royal egos on full display, about how upset and offended they were that they only learned about Obama’s intentions from an article in the New York Times. (Linked below.)
And when Obama, showing better courtesy, went to Capital Hill yesterday to meet with Senate and House leaders about his economic stimulus plans, anyone versed in reading body language could see written all over her how upset Nancy Pelosi was to have to share the Democratic spotlight with her party’s new leader.
Her frozen smile said it all—Here I was the country’s leading Democrat, always turned to by the media as the spokesperson for the opposition party—the clear counterforce to George Bush (and by the way enjoying every minute of the attention)—and now along comes this very junior senator who the public loves and who will get all the adulation . . . .
And then, in contrast, we have the opposition to the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. There is a chorus of hypocritical voices from other pretenders to that assignment. We paid our dues, members of New York’s congressional delegation are saying, by serving term after term in the House of Representative and thus are entitled to be considered. What experience does she have that comparably prepares her for this high office? This smacks of royalty, they complain, and is not what our founders intended.
There is some point to that—the inherited benefit she has of being JFK’s daughter—but they are blinded by the facts of their own politician lives to the larger civic truth: that they are more royal than she.
She, better than they, fits the founders’ concept of the citizen-politician. At this point in her life, after raising a family, writing books on constitutional law, and serving on various philanthropic and non-governmental boards, she is seeking to lend her service to her country. This does not guarantee that she will be an effective senator, but isn’t it just what Jefferson intended?
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:55 AM
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