On Partisan Criticism and Excuses

When President Obama was elected in 2008, I commented to Jody that I would now have to listen to over-the-top complaints from a completely different group of friends than I had over the previous eight years.

I’m no apologist for George W. Bush. I just don’t think he was as bad as so many of his critics thought he was. Neither was he as good as his apologists tried to claim. I think you could say that about just about any politician.

President Obama also has his critics and defenders, and I would say the same thing. He’s not nearly so bad as the critics claim, nor so good as his apologists would have us think.

Now there will be plenty of shrill voices to tell me I’ve missed this or that scandal about either man. I make sure that my ears are not just picking up from any one direction, so I’m going to hear both sets. What will I hear? I will hear Democrats excusing behavior on the part of the current administration that would have had them apoplectic had the same behavior taken place in the previous administration. I will hear Republicans criticizing the current administration for things they would have excused under a Republican president.

That’s why I move past these criticisms very quickly. It’s not that I think the behavior—in either case—is OK. It’s just that I always hear the other half of the argument, whether it’s explicit or not: And so you should vote for our party.

But the problem is that “your party,” whichever party that happens to be, scares me. As much as I dislike the failure to agree to compromise legislation on things like the budget, I also am very much afraid of what would happen if either of the two parties we have now gets hold of the entire government. There just isn’t enough good sense to go around.

So regardless of the screaming, I can tell you right now that I don’t know who I will vote for come the next election. That’s going to depend on who is nominated by each party. I’m going to go through the issues, the behavior, and yes, the associations of each candidate and make my decision. I’m also not going to be commenting publicly that much. Doing a good job of political commentary simply takes more time than I have, and apparently than most of you, or most of the paid commentators have. This piece is a good example. I should provide examples and references. I should tell you what I think would be “good sense” in government. But I’m not going to. I just don’t have the time to do this right.

So this is more in the nature of a plea to self-examination. Try to recognize the weaknesses on your own side. You can actually vote for a candidate you consider flawed. I do it every election. If I were running, I would be that flawed candidate. There are no candidates without flaws.

We should admit it, and make the best decisions we can.