Politics ain't beanbag, as Mr. Dooley once noted. And no matter what you might hear this week, it never has been.
Sometimes politics on these shores has been so personal as to cause fatal embarrassment. Rachel Jackson died just after her husband was elected. The campaign for the other side had heaped so much abuse on her and her marriage that she began having chest pains. When she died of a heart attack on Dec. 22, 1828, President Jackson told his enemies they'd better hope God Almighty showed them mercy, for he'd give them none himself.
But between the rough beginnings of this nation to about the Watergate era, there was something of a gentleman's club in American politics. Or seemed to be. (You might have heard that the late unpleasantness between 1861-1865 was something of an uncivil time.) When Americans weren't killing each other, we were mostly polite. There was a time, believe it or not, when presidents didn't even campaign for office. They wanted to appear above it all, as drafted servants, perfect gentlemen.
Maybe the whole idea of a gentleman's club is old-fashioned itself these days. Americans still have to wait two more years before We the Whole People celebrate the centennial of women's enfranchisement into the system. Half of our readers, perhaps more, might think mansplaining has had its time--more than enough of its time.
When, however, did American politics change from serious and consequential sparring to . . . this?
Before our good friends on the left begin to think we're defending Brett Kavanaugh from the latest accusations, we aren't. He's never sat for an interview here. We've never met the man.
And this isn't just the stuff of 19th-century novels, as Charles Krauthammer once described the machinations behind the Thomas-Hill hearings of 1991. If Judge Kavanaugh's accuser is to be believed, this most recent matter is more the stuff of CSI. Or might have been decades ago, when Brett Kavanaugh was in high school. Is there a statute of limitations on being a punk? Should there be? And if Brett Kavanaugh is to be believed, this is one of the worst smears in this country's history, timed perfectly by the Democratic Party, which has apparently had this information for a while.
Now that the one side has had artillery fire drop inside its wire, friendly observers can now see the positions of their enemy, and are directing fire in turn. You should have heard what the national radio man said about the accuser Monday morning. It was enough to make one ask: Are all the gentlemen truly gone? No matter what a body might think about that gentleman's club, you'd have to admit that having authentic gentlemen, and ladies, among us can't be a bad thing in trying times. If everybody turns into Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, heaven help us.
But for the next month, and maybe beyond, expect not only the judge's reputation to be ruined, but the accuser's, too. Call it mutually assured destruction. Just as poisonous gas drifts from east to west, north to south, depending on the wind, so does ill will. It crosses the lines, no matter where the concertina wire is unrolled. But "fire for effect" seems to be the order of the day, no matter which way the howitzers are pointing.
Already the cable news shows are digging into her past, her political leanings, her social media contacts--even interviewing her students. (What professor has never had a disgruntled student?) Now millions of us will declare ourselves judges on the matter, and surely our political leanings will determine for the court whether he's a goon or whether she's an operative. And the soot will stick to both, forever more. Just as one can't say Clarence Thomas without thinking Anita Hill.
Good, some will say. Brett Kavanaugh deserves it.
But does she? And should high school follow a man into middle age? Some of us certainly hope not.
This is an important matter, and be assured a lot of mediocre things will be said about it in the public prints. Battle lines have already been formed, and a lot of reputations will be casualties. As the first of the accusations and counter-accusations and counter-counter-accusations kept coming over the weekend, one question kept coming to our mind:
Did the state of public discourse in America improve after the Thomas-Hill hearings?
The year 1991 gave rise to 1992, which gave rise to 1994, which gave us 1998, then 2000. It's enough to make some of us long for the good old days--of the 1828 campaign.
Sit tight, fellow Americans. As we kept saying in 1998, you might have to send the kids out of the room when the news comes on.
Into the mud.
Editorial on 09/18/2018