Hubris
While I don’t write about politics - largely because I believe the ability to govern, inspire and lead America in today’s world by politics is broken beyond repair - living in the Washington, DC, area, I cannot help to escape the ubiquitous everyday signs of political arrogance.
Yesterday, for example, while picking up dry cleaning from the shop we use in McLean, Virginia, the shop owner, her employees, people outside on the sidewalk and I were interrupted by a man with an extremely loud voice who had parked his enormous black SUV not in a normal parking space but in the middle of the parking lot, to bring in his laundry. The fact that he apparently felt he was so self-important and hence, could park anywhere he pleased, blocking other cars, didn’t seem to bother him. Heck, he was Terry McAuliffe, who until recently was chief campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. He’s a guy who has gotten rich from raising money for political campaigns. I got the impression that he was loud because he wanted everyone to look him, the self-perceived center of importance … part of his mojo. Reminded me of a kid I knew in high school.
You see that sort of hubris a lot in Washington. None of it is focused on how to make America better, safer or aimed on critically needed nation-building, as Tom Friedman wrote about in today’s New York Times.
The little display by McAuliffe, whose deafening speaking tone I believe is normal, is indicative of the blind arrogance that has infected our nation’s capital, fed by money, greed and power. Multiply that many times over, and I believe it’s one of the reasons that nothing really gets accomplished in Washington, except to make the players richer. But what really is happening is that it is ultimately making the United States less than respected and less influential on the world stage.
About the Author: David is a veteran communications strategist ... writer ... blogger ... online publisher ... and Emmy Award winning former CBS Network News correspondent. He lives in Washington, D. C., area and works worldwide.
Eric Mondschein | Jun 29, 2008 | Reply
Sad, but so true.
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MJ | Jun 29, 2008 | Reply
It’s true..McAuliffe is the democratic devil incarnate.
Perhaps right up there with Karl Rove. I’m a dem…but
McAuliffe and his ways are no longer applicable to the politics Obama is trying to bring about. He needs insiders to get the job done. But I truly hope McAuliffe is not a part of the team. Pleeeeze!
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[name withheld at request] | Jul 3, 2008 | Reply
There are few things more offensive to me than the guy who thinks the rules do not apply to him because he is important. I make a distinction between that guy and the guy who thinks the rule shouldn’t apply to anyone, or who is sincerely ignorant of the rules.
Perhaps the most shocking thing is that he drops off his own dry cleaning. I figured he had staff for that.
When I watched him looking into the camera saying that Clinton would win, long after it was clear that she could not win, I winced because it was all very unhelpful to Obama (my candidate) and to the country and the quality of our discourse, which already is abysmal. That said, I was in some perverse way impressed that he could keep doing it, keep saying these things before tens of millions of people, millions of whom knew that he didn’t believe a word of it. Impressed in a very narrow way - this was not something I think is good or desirable, just hard to do.
I don’t share your cynicism, at least not your level of cynicism, about our politics and government, for one reason: while manifestly imperfect, this country is infinitely perfectible, and is based on a constitution that actively provides for that “perfection” as a verb, a continuing process that never quite gets to its end, but (so far) has never irretrievably extinguished the hope of progress in that direction. It’s a process that has ups and downs. I feel like we potentially are finishing one of the major downs and perhaps entering (next January) what might be at least a minor up.
I certainly have the experience of a cynic, but I try, with limited success, to have the discipline of a idealist without illusions. Have been trying to figure this out since about 1972. Still working on it.
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