Running Against a Tsunami

I know it’s easy to critique a campaign from the sidelines, but it’s really difficult to understand what Dick Lugar is thinking. I catch his television commercials from time to time, and as a past supporter and contributor, I get email blasts from his campaign daily.

It is increasingly painful and off-putting to watch.

The Dick Lugar I used to know and admire was a statesman. I didn’t always agree with him–even when I was still a Republican, he was sometimes too conservative for me–but I always respected him; he was reasoned and thoughtful, gracious to his opponents and informed in his positions. It’s true that, as the party moved right, Lugar moved with it, but never to the fringe. He never stooped to the sort of hateful rhetoric and flat-earth know-nothingness that has so diminished the Grand Old Party. He was never an ideologue.

Until now.

Lugar is being challenged by the worst elements of an increasingly irrational base. Mourdock, his primary opponent, is a bad joke. But as Jim Shella wrote in an earlier column on this race, Mourdock isn’t the point.  While there are certainly legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at him (or any other long-serving elected official), Lugar’s opposition is largely fueled by a veritable tsunami of anger and resentment and fear that has focused on him as a part of the hated status quo. 

And therein lies the challenge.

Shella was right: the Tea Party fanatics who want Dick Lugar gone don’t care who replaces him. They detest Lugar for the very characteristics that have generated consistent voter support over the years. That very obvious reality puts his campaign squarely between the proverbial rock and hard place–if he remains true to himself and his record, if he campaigns on that record with his head held high, he won’t win the votes of the ideologues most likely to vote in the primary. But if he tries to reinvent himself as a rabid True Believer, he betrays his own principles, diminishes an otherwise admirable legacy–and still may not get their votes.

Despite the risks, the campaign has chosen the latter strategy.

So we are treated to grainy commercials featuring the Senator using “good old boy” terminology he’s never previously employed. We get emails from his campaign demonizing the President of the United States, stooping to a level of disrespect that would have been inconceivable coming from the “real” Dick Lugar. We are assured that the Senator no longer supports measures, like the Dream Act, that he had previously–and admirably–championed. We get messages that are absolutely devoid of the nuance and civility characteristic of the statesman he used to be.

It is so pathetic, so inauthentic, it’s painful.

I don’t know whether this all-out pandering will allow Lugar to eke out one last term. He has a lot of money, and a deep reservoir of good will, and it may be enough–although if I were a wagering woman, I wouldn’t bet on it.

I know a number of Democrats who had earlier considered “crossing over” to vote for Lugar in the GOP primary. I was one of them. Had the campaign chosen a different course–had it mounted a full-throated defense of an impressive record–I think many of those crossover votes would materialize, although probably not enough to change the outcome. Fewer such votes will be cast for a man running away from his own most admirable traits.

The longer this primary contest goes on, the more I want to ask the Senator two questions: is winning another term, at age 80, so important that it is worth this unseemly (and unpersuasive) groveling? And if you win, if you return to Washington after this dispiriting display, which Dick Lugar will you be?

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A Widespread Misunderstanding

A recent comment posted to this blog demonstrates a widespread–and pernicious–misunderstanding of the role of the U.S. Constitution. The commenter demanded to know where there was any reference to healthcare in the constitution.

The answer, of course, is that no such reference exists–just as there’s no reference to, say, smoking. Or marriage. Or the right to drive a car. Or the internet.

The constitution does not grant us rights. It limits the government’s right to infringe on those rights. The founders believed that we have certain “inalienable” rights by virtue of being human (hence “human rights”). Some believed those rights were “endowed by the Creator.” But Creator or no, those human rights preceded governments and their laws; the Bill of Rights was intended to constrain government from ignoring or invading them.

The bottom line is that government can pass laws and create programs that the legislature believes will advance the general welfare, so long as those laws and programs do not run afoul of the limits imposed by the document itself, or by the Bill of Rights. We are all free to disagree about the wisdom of government’s policy choices; we are equally free to debate whether, in close cases, government has crossed the lines established by the constitution.

But when we look to the language of our constituent documents for permission–when we view government as the source of our rights–we betray a fundamental misconception of the role of government and law in these United States.

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Who Do You Trust?

In its business section this morning, the New York Times had a lengthy story about Angie’s List, the Indianapolis-based company that offers members access to reviews of service providers of various kinds. The reviews are provided by the members, and the article noted that–unlike sites like Yelp!–those reviews are not anonymous. While Angie’s list doesn’t publish the names of the reviewers, it does insist that evaluations come from identifiable individuals.

As the company’s public offering explained, they require this because it’s hard to trust anonymous statements and “facts” culled from the internet. The insistence that reviews come from verifiable sources is one way to increase the trustworthiness of the information being provided.

Lack of trust may be the signal characteristic of our times.

Angie’s List isn’t the only organization trying to deal with the wild west that is our current information landscape–far from it.  I would argue that much of what ails America these days is either enabled by or a direct result of mis-information, dis-information and  information uncertainty.

We are all being constantly bombarded with “news” that we aren’t quite sure we can trust.

The days when Mr. and Mrs. America tuned in to Walter Cronkite–and relied on the accuracy of his reporting–are long gone. Newspapers–with a few exceptions–fill the few pages they still publish with restaurant reviews and diet tips rather than fact-checked reporting. Cable “news” is anything but; it’s spin and talking points, and most Americans recognize that. It is increasingly difficult to determine the credibility of information we find online. No matter how goofy the perspectives or bizarre the conspiracy theories, you are likely to find confirmation of them in some fevered corner of the internet. (Just ask Rep. Bob Morris, who found “evidence” confirming his suspicions about those sneaky, abortion-loving, lesbian Girl Scouts.)

The problem is, when we no longer have authoritative sources and institutions we trust, societies don’t work very well. We lose an essential element of what social scientists call “social capital.” (Warning: shameless plug approaching.) I wrote about the causes and troubling consequences of diminished social and institutional trust a couple of years ago, in my book Distrust, American Style.

It isn’t just the folks who find internet confirmation that aliens landed in Roswell and the government covered it up. We’ve always had conspiracy theorists who are, shall we say, lightly tethered to reality. Today’s information landscape promises consequences far more pernicious than enabling the Holocaust deniers or encouraging the religious zealots convinced that the Rapture is imminent.

When ordinary Americans can’t be sure who is telling the truth, it’s easier to retreat into “us versus them” views of the world; easier to believe that a President who doesn’t look like you is really a secret Kenyan Muslim; easier to believe that an effort to provide healthcare is really an attack on religious liberty.

There is broad recognition that we have a problem.

The question is: how do we fix it?

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Because Fair Isn’t Necessarily Balanced…

National Public Radio has just adopted new ethics guidelines. We can only hope they signal the beginning of a wide trend in the media.

The new code stresses the importance of accuracy over false balance; it appears–finally–to abandon the “he said, she said” approach (what I have elsewhere called “stenography masquerading as reporting”) that all too often distorts truth in favor of a phony “fairness.”

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.

One of my gripes over the past several years has been the abandonment of precisely this tenet of good journalism. A good example has been environmental reporting–how many times have media sources reported on climate change, for example, by giving equal time and weight to  the settled science and the deniers, without ever noting that the deniers constitute less than 1% of all climate scientists, and are generally regarded as a kooky fringe? That’s “balance,” but it certainly isn’t “fair to the truth.”

A few years ago, this sort of false equivalency was illustrated by one of my all-time favorite Daily Show skits. The “senior journalism reporter” was explaining the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on John Kerry to Jon Stewart. “The Swift Boat Veterans say this happened; the Kerry Campaign says it didn’t. Back to you, Jon!” When Stewart then asked “But aren’t you going to tell us who is telling the truth?”  the response was dead-on. “Absolutely not, Jon. This is journalism.”

Far too often, reporters pursue artificial balance at the expense of truth. If a Democratic campaign plays a dirty trick, reporters rush to remind their audience of a similar transgression by Republicans, and vice-versa. This search for equivalency may be well-intentioned, but it misrepresents reality and misleads those of us who depend upon the media for accurate information.

NPR’s recognition of this pernicious practice, and it’s new Code of Ethics, are a welcome sign that at least some journalists might be returning to Job One: telling us the unembellished truth.

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A Blunt Instrument

Today, the Senate is poised to vote on a proposal by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt that could potentially eviscerate health insurance guarantees for millions of Americans under the guise of protecting religious liberty.

The Blunt Amendment is indeed a blunt instrument, part of a deeply cynical and wholly phony debate over whether requiring employers to offer a basic package of benefits in their healthcare policies violates the “conscience” of those who may disagree with some of those health services (e.g., contraception) on the basis of religion or morality.

This started, of course, with resistance by some employers to contraception coverage.

Under the original rule that would have required Catholic hospitals and universities to pay for contraceptive coverage, there was a barely plausible religious liberty argument. Once the regulation was changed, so that insurance companies were to offer the coverage directly to employees without charge, even that argument evaporated. (Think about it: how does the fact that your employee can get a medical product that your religious beliefs prohibit you from using violate your First Amendment rights? You aren’t being forced to use it, and now, not even forced to pay for it.)

This is a violation only if your “religious liberty” includes the right to tell other people how to live.

For most of the talking heads and lawmakers making all the noise, this wasn’t even really about contraception. The real motive for this entire manufactured controversy is the Republicans’ persistent effort to kill the Affordable Care Act.  The Blunt Amendment would give every employer the right to opt out of coverage for health care procedures and products that offend his conscience. (How we would know that a particular coverage really bothered his conscience rather than his pocketbook is an open question.)

Don’t believe working women should have babies? Don’t cover maternity benefits.

Don’t believe in immunizations? Don’t cover the costs of vaccinations.

Don’t believe in artificial “assistance” for sex? Don’t cover viagra.

Okay, you get the idea. Passage of this proposal would make health coverage unworkable–which is, of course, the point. It has nothing to do with religious liberty, as I’ve previously explained, and most Senators clearly understand that.

One of the saddest footnotes to this dishonest nonsense is watching Dick Lugar, of all people, jump on this bandwagon, in yet another pathetic effort to pander to the Tea Party zealots trying to oust him.

The day before yesterday, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine announced she wouldn’t run for another term. There were evidently limits to what she was willing to do to placate the irrational know-nothings who have assumed control of the GOP.  Lugar would have done better to emulate her, and depart with dignity.

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