The economists have a term for it: opportunity cost - the benefits forgone
when an investor puts his capital into one project rather than another. His
choice may prove profitable, but another choice might have been even more so
- and so he's lost the difference between the two. That's the opportunity
cost, and it can be measured not just in dollars but in time or energy or
anything else of value.
Politicians, like the rest of us, make much the same mistake when, given a
chance to score political points, they seize the moment and exploit it for
all it's worth, or rather for what they think it's worth. Actually they
might gain something incalculably more by declining the opportunity to
engage in a little cheap drama - and instead serve their fellow citizens by
raising the level of public discourse, and win a place in history. That is
true greatness.
There will always be those who think it's foolish to miss any opportunity to
lambaste the opposition. Their philosophy: A soft word turneth away the
voters. Every chance for a sound bite must be seized.
Let's hope there will also be those who try to rise above the fray to see
farther, think more clearly and act more honorably.
It's the difference between a ring-tailed roarer like Howard Dean - the
perpetual and now professional partisan - and a quiet thinker like
Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, who's willing to speak unwelcome truths even to
his own, inflamed party. And be willing to pay the price for it in a party
primary.
It's the difference between a Joe McCarthy and an Adlai Stevenson. Let it be
noted that Gov. Stevenson paid the usual price for thoughtfulness and
eloquence in a televised age; he lost his race for the presidency in 1952.
(And in 1956, too, by which time he'd learned the cost of talking sense to
the American people and was content to just repeat catch phrases, which
availed him even less.) But in the presidential campaign of '52, he was
still introducing novelties like reason and eloquence into, of all things,
an American presidential race.
Some criticized Adlai Stevenson that year for "speaking over the heads of
the American people" when he was only trying to get us to look up. Looking
back, it's even clearer that one needn't have agreed with the gentleman from
Illinois to admire his faith in the American people, and in the power of
reason.
When a red-in-the-face Bill Clinton tells off an interviewer on Fox News, he
may fire up his party's long frustrated base, and win the plaudits of those
partisans who made up their minds long ago. About everything. But his little
tizzy cost him more than his dignity. While reveling in the chance to tell
off his critics, he lost an opportunity to raise the level of public
discourse.
Amid all the finger-pointing rage and the kind of selective history that's
good mainly for rhetorical purposes, reason evaporates. Bill Clinton's
attack was followed predictably enough by counter-attacks, and what might
have been a meaningful debate about the future gave way to one more rehash
of the past. Given an opportunity to address the next generation, the former
president seemed interested only in making points for the next election, or
maybe the one after that. Which seemed the extent of his vision.
Much the same goes for George W. Bush when he responds to provocative
questions at his news conference not by trying to raise the level of
discussion but by going after the questioner. The president is less than
presidential at such moments. With the result that the case he should be
making - the case for going after terrorism on its home ground, for
expanding democracy in the Middle East, for victory instead of drift - goes
unmade.
And so another opportunity to raise the level of public discourse is lost,
replaced by partisan slogans. Labels take the place of thought: cut-and-run,
stay-the-course fill in your own cliche. Meanwhile, the appeal to reason
goes unmade.
Other leaders have appealed to high principle at other critical times, well
knowing the price they would pay. Nevertheless, they chose to pursue the
opportunity to make a difference in history, to shape it rather than be
shaped by it.
Think of the despised Churchill of the 1930s, that low, sordid decade, who
dared warn of the gathering storm even if it meant he would be ignored - at
least until he was sorely needed.
Think of the then unpopular Harry Truman, who chose to stand fast in Korea
("Truman's War") rather than either withdraw or turn that conflict into a
world war while his presidential term drained away in frustration.
Think of how Ronald Reagan was ridiculed and railed against when he foresaw
a world without the Soviet Union, and dared call that regime the evil empire
it was.
Even in the midst of a congressional election that promises much heat,
little light and even less honor, every press conference, every public
appearance, every political speech presents every national leader with an
opportunity to raise the level of public discourse. Each time our
politicians choose to debase it instead - in order to please the crowd, or
just to serve their own egos - they pay the cost. They lose the opportunity
to mark the history of these times with their honor.