Credit to Bob Barr for Consistency
I was not a huge fan of Bob Barr during the Clinton impeachment. I disagreed with the case that he was making and I often disagreed with the way he made it. I have little doubt that my feelings were influenced by the belief that the process of investigations that led to the impeachment was a highly partisan affair. So I have to give Barr considerable credit, because it looks like he is applying the same standards to George W. Bush that he did to Bill Clinton. That’s very clear in this editorial from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he writes:
First, in the best tradition of former President Bill Clinton’s classic, “it-all-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-is-is” defense, President Bush responded to a question at a White House news conference about what now appears to be a clear violation of federal electronic monitoring laws by trying to argue that he had not ordered the National Security Agency to “monitor” phone and e-mail communications of American citizens without court order; he had merely ordered them to “detect” improper communications.
This example of presidential phrase parsing was followed quickly by the president’s press secretary, Scott McLellan, dead-panning to reporters that when Bush said a couple of years ago that he would never allow the NSA to monitor Americans without a court order, what he really meant was something different than what he actually said. If McLellan’s last name had been McCurry, and the topic an illicit relationship with a White House intern rather than illegal spying on American citizens, I could have easily been listening to a White House news conference at the height of the Clinton impeachment scandal.
On foreign policy, domestic issues, relationships with Congress, and even their selection of White House Christmas cards and china patterns, presidents are as different as night and day. But when caught with a hand in the cookie jar and their survival called into question, administrations circle the wagons, fall back on time-worn but often effective defense mechanisms, and seamlessly morph into one another.
A level of consistency is a vital thing if we’re going to have a democratic society. It is much easier to have a healthy difference of beliefs if we have confidence that the other person truly believes what he is arguing, and a very good way to establish that is to know that the person will follow that belief to its reasonable conclusions even in different circumstances. This is not to say that we won’t ever get fuzzy around the edges and be inconsistent from time to time. And it doesn’t mean that beliefs have a one-size-fits-all application – it can be very possible that different responses are justified by the specific characteristics of superficially similar situations. But I think a lot of public officials could take a lesson from Bob Barr right now.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.