Civility Isn't a Bad Thing in Politics...Nor is the Constitution

Twelve days ago, I listened to some of Talk of the Nation's interview with Chris Matthews. Matthews told two interesting and evocative stories from his days as an aide to Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. Both involved O'Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan, two men with markedly different political philosophies and differing visions for the country.

The first of Matthews' stories took place in Reagan's hospital room in March, 1981, shortly after the President had been shot. On entering, O'Neill leaned over Reagan's bed and kissed him. Then, holding hands, with O'Neill on his knees, they recited Psalm 23 together: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me..."

The second is a personal memory of Matthews from those days. Reagan entered the anteroom of the Speaker's office, a place occupied by Matthews himself, just before the President was to deliver a State of the Union message. "Mr. President," Matthews said, "this is the room where we plot against you." "Oh, no," Reagan replied impishly, "the Speaker says that we're friends after 6:00."

I wonder how some of today's Red or Blue ideologues would react to such bonhommie between two political rivals, one an unabashedly liberal Democrat, the other considered to be the godfather of today's conservative Republicans?

How would they feel about the fact that after hard-fought battles, the Republican President and the Democratic Speaker could have a belt together?

And how would it strike them that, even these people indisputably committed to their own parties and philosophies, found ways to compromise and make government work?

How, in short, do the ideologues of the Left and of the Right react to civility, even friendliness, among rival politicians?

When I read the blogs or listen to the comments of today's fierce ideologues, I think that they look askance at any camaraderie or compromise in politics. They'd rather win an argument, at least in their own eyes, than advance the interests of the country at large. (Or even their own causes, if incrementally and incompletely.) And they have no patience for the simple practical fact that politics, like much of life, is about people working together with people, sometimes people who have deep disagreements.

The most recent issue of The Week reports on an interview that Playboy conducted with actor, director, and one-time political activist Robert Redford. He was apparently asked why he's given up on political involvement. He spoke of being at a Washington, D.C. fete on the night he received a Kennedy Center honor two years ago. Remembers Redford:

Here were sworn enemies, the leaders who beat the ____ out of each other all day in public, but the minute those doors closed for the state dinner, the daggers went away and it was one big happy family. I saw former Republican Sen. Bill Frist weaving through the tables, and he came over to Ted Kennedy and start [sic] massaging his shoulders and laughing like they were the oldest buddies in the world. Everybody was crossing the aisles and chuckling, and I said, "Oh, I get it! It really is just a game."

Redford is one of my favorite actors. He hasn't, in my view, always gotten a fair shake for his talents, with critics often overlooking the subtlety of his performances. I also admire him as a director.

And there is reason to doubt the genuineness of what political figures claim they believe when the cameras are turned on. I think of the virulently anti-gay Senator Larry Craig found soliciting a homosexual tryst in an airport restroom. Much of our politics is a game, a kabuki dance of parroted talking points in which the parrots don't really believe.

But, these political figures aren't meant to be and shouldn't be, in Redford's phrase, "sworn enemies." Not to be pedantic about it, but members of Congress, for example, take a different oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

Members of Congress and other public officials are sworn to do what's best for the country. It's disappointing how infrequently they do that, to be sure.

But surely the solution to that problem isn't for members of competing political parties to wall themselves off from one another, sworn enemies. According to most people who've spent decades in Washington, there's been too much of that partisan walling-off in recent years anyway.

Okay, you think, it's only Robert Redford's opinion that pols of different persuasions shouldn't be friendly to one another. Not everybody feels that way, right? Wrong.

Today, I see that uber-blogger Arianna Huffington is proudly publicizing her interview with current Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Huffington isn't touting Pelosi's words, but her confrontational question of the Speaker, "Are you too well-behaved to get us out of Iraq?"

Of course, the answer to anybody familiar with the Constitution, is that, frustrating as it may be for many in the country, Pelosi's inability to shut down the war has nothing to do with her being polite. It has everything to do with the fact that neither she or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have majorities able to override vetoes President Bush would smack against any measures the Congress passed for ending the war.

But to ideologues of the Right and the Left, it seems, the niceties of the Constitution are only to be heeded when doing so advances their preferred political decisions.

The Framers knew that the only alternative to adherence to such "niceties" was tyranny and mob rule.1

I like civility in politics. In fact, I think that such politeness is essential to getting things done, not to mention being one of the characteristics that separate human beings from the rest of the creatures of the world. (I believe that courtesy is something to which God calls us, as an expression of love for others.)

I also admire the Constitution.

There are frustrations that go with democratic-republican government. But lose civility or lose the Constitution and we lose America.

Reagan and O'Neill knew that. I wish that today's firebrand partisans knew it too.

1It should be pointed out that Thomas Jefferson, father of nasty partisanship in US politics, wasn't among the Framers at the Constitutional Convention. In fact, he initially opposed the Constitution, disliking power going to a central government and looking askance at the establishment of an executive, the President. But, ideologue and hypocrite as he always was, when Jefferson became President, he claimed authority never granted to the chief executive by the Constitution and openly told his friends that sometimes, a leader had to break the rules in order to get things done. Jefferson would be supportive of today's virulent ideologues, be they conservative or liberal. But I think that George Washington is a far better model for us today than Jefferson. Washington adhered to strong principles and he set this country on a positive course from which we benefit today. But, in spite of a fierce temper, he was civil.

[The picture above, showing House Speaker Tip O'Neill and President Ronald Reagan, comes from The New York Times.]

[THANKS TO: Andy Jackson of SmartChristian.com for linking to this post.]

[UPDATE: Esteemed blogging colleague, Charlie Lehardy, shares some thoughts on the topic of civility in the same post in which he generously links to this piece.]

[THANKS TO: John Schroeder, co-blogger of Article 6 Blog, for linking to this post.]