Peggy Noonan has an interesting article in which she explains why she finds the public chumminess of ex-Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton creepy. After describing the benefits enjoyed by Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush because of the association of their husband and father respectively, Ms. Noonan writes that the exaggerated friendship is disrespectful to all the hard workers who really do care about the issues at hand.
What bothers me about the fervid friendship of the Bushes and Mr. Clinton--and the media celebration of it--is the faint whiff of superiority, a sense they radiate that all those slightly icky little people running around wailing about issues--tax reform, the relation of the individual to the state, the necessary character of a president--and working the precincts are somehow . . . a little below them. There is an air of condescension toward that grubby thing, belief. Those who hold it are not elevated, don't quite fit into the high-minded nonpartisan brotherhood. When in fact the people doing the day-to-day work of democracy, and who are in it because they are impelled by deep belief and philosophy, are actually not below them at all, and perhaps above them. Not that they're on the cover of People hugging, but at least they're serious.It is the suggestion, or the suspicion, that these men have grown close because they are not serious, were never quite serious, that grates. That makes one wonder. That leaves some Republicans, and I have to assume more than a few Democrats, scratching their heads when they see Newt smiling with Hillary, and John McCain giggling with Hillary. It leaves you wondering: Why are these people laughing?
I largely agree. If it's just "my team" against "your team", with nothing more at stake than a trophy and bragging rights, then of course we should leave the game on the field and be friends after the competition is over. But when real, substantial, life-or-death matters hang in the balance, should they be so easily set aside for the sake of comity? As Ms. Noonan indicates, maybe this attitude reveals that politics isn't more than a game for some of our leaders.
That's so stupid. John F. Kennedy and Barry Goldwater were friends. I don't think their supporters felt slighted by the friendship.
I also would say part of the reason for being chummy is they are part of a ver exclusive club and really forms a common ground between them.
Oh but if he was friends with Jimmah Carter that would be creepy.
Reagan and O'Neill were friends, too. I take politics as seriously as the next guy, but frankly, IMO anyone who takes politics so seriously that they cannot be friends with people on the other side of the aisle is unfit for elective office.
It seems to me that political rhetoric has increased in viciousness to the level where the activists on both sides perceive it as no longer a war of ideas, but a literal war between good and evil. Since most of us in the blogosphere are ensconced in activist politics, and since the media loves to play up the "Red vs. Blue" angle, we have a somewhat skewed perspective on what the "normal" relations between persons of differing persuasion really are.
For most of our politicians, there's a recognizance of the game and the grandstanding, I think. Not to mention a fundamental understanding that slapping one's opponent in the face is neither graceful nor productive.
If Bush was cozing up to, say, Ted Kennedy, or George Galloway, I'd be a little more worried. But Clinton, despite the dislike I have for him on a personal level, is really not so far removed from Bush in his political stances that the two can't chalk it up to differences of opinion and mutual disagreement. (And it's worth noting that while he stumps for his party, he's also been very careful not to speak publicly in a way that undermines the war effort.) Even John Kerry and Al Gore did not run for office on platforms so dissimilar from Bush's as to paint a clear line of intolerable evil, beyond which there can be no polite association. (I realize that Gore has since veered sharply to the left, making that assertion dubious, but his presidential run wasn't tainted by such.)
And as the Pirate noted, both men are part of an exclusive club -- both bearers of a burden of office unprecedented in history, and uniquely in a position to understand its hardships. That they would find common ground despite their other differences is no great surprise.
This is grist for my contention that democracies' governing classes are a functioning aristrocracy.