New York Times Decries Senate Compromise

To celebrate the return of some form of maturity in the United States Senate, today’s New York Times Editorial complains that “it’s not terribly encouraging to see how low the bar is for joining the moderate camp,” and goes on to point out that “several staunch conservatives” were a part of the Republican seven senator team that helped cut the deal.

Now, I read that and thought: How is this bad?

Having been involved in politics for some time, I’ve noticed a pattern of behavior in “newbies”, those just waking up to smell the political roses. First, the wakeup call comes from some cause or other that they get excited about — and then they polarize. Their political activism becomes more about hurling judgments and vitriol at “the other side” than it does about solving the political problem that got them excited in the first place.

As I watched the temper tantrums and threats go back and forth between the Democratic and Republican leadership in the Senate, it occurred to me that these political “pros”, these senators — the equivalent of nobility in America– had descended to the same level as inexperienced political children. Unwilling to compromise, for weeks each seemed more interested in hurling sand at the other than straightening up the mess in the sandbox.

Until it became clear that the whole sandbox might get blown up if they didn’t clean up their mess.

That it took this kind of threat for fourteen (only fourteen out of a hundred!) senators to grow up and act like politically mature adults still strikes me as sad. But it does contain a
useful lesson for anyone and everyone involved in the political arena:

First, politics is the art of compromise! Without compromise, nothing gets done. Second, politics is the art of listening. Not to your buddies (you already know what they think), but to your opposition. Liberalism does not contain all the “right” answers; neither does “conservatism”. Those who’ve been around the political fence a few times will tell you that on average, the output of any democratic body runs right down the middle of the public whose opinion its members are elected to represent. That’s as true of the local school board as it is the the United States Congress. So it should come as no surprise to anybody that “several staunch conservatives” hung their vitriol and judgments on the hat rack and turned centrist when the chips were down. That’s where the action was. That’s where the action always is. That’s where the work gets done.

So if you ever want to become anything more than a political sniveler, maybe you should consider becoming a centrist too.

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