Looking In The Mirror


    We need not linger over Rush Limbaugh, the radio personality who used the airwaves to savage a private citizen for trying to exercise a citizen's rights.  Limbaugh and his niche audience like to portray him as a commentator.  But he is in fact just an entertainer of an especially low sort.  Having said that he is the political equivalent of a pornographer, we've said enough and should move on.
    We should move on to the context and the aftermath of the Limbaugh incident.  In both there is occasion for sadness, concern and a strong dose of self-examination.
     At issue was the posture of public policy toward insurance coverage for contraception.  Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, wanted to testify before a Congressional hearing. In her view, contraception is an essential form of health care for many women. She feels government should not limit access for doctrinal reasons having nothing to do with public health.
     Republicans maneuvered to prevent her from speaking. Democrats gave her an alternative forum. Limbaugh called her a variety of vulgar names on the air.
     In a libel on conservatism, Limbaugh  purports to speak for conservatives. But Republican presidential candidates responded to his vicious outburst with slow and tepid criticism.  The office of House Speaker John Boehner issued a craven statement. Other Republicans in Congress were notably silent.
       The context is an enduring preoccupation on the political right with matters of sex and reproduction. It produces -- often on the issue of abortion -- attempts to write religious precept into civil law.  This is both an affront to our country's foremost principles and a remarkably short-sighted approach to governance. Once the door is opened to government enforcement of religion, any religious interest group with enough votes can use the access thus afforded.  Christian conservatives are not well advised to bet on long-term dominance for their point of view.
      (And in answer to one question implicit in what's above, let me say that I have my own reservations about abortion.  I just don't want the government enforcing my personal values on my neighbors.)
      Other concerns are stirred by the attempt of congressional Republicans in this episode to prevent the expression of views unlike their own. The government of the United States is supposed to shelter, respect and mediate among varying opinions and interests. But nowadays government may be a mere instrument of power for the voting bloc of the moment. The rampant partisanship in Congress is a fundamental betrayal of principle and public trust.
     For the past couple of years we've seen it in the attempts of a willful Republican minority to sabotage the work of a duly elected president.  We've seen it in political brinksmanship that brought the country to the verge of economic chaos.  We've seen it in relentless attempts to shackle the government of all the people to the personal views of some of the people.
    Noteworthy in this connection is the recent announcement by Maine Republican moderate Olympia Snowe that she won't seek re-election to the Senate. She cites long service, yes, but also unwillingness to invest any more of her life in an institution that does not reliably attend to its higher purposes.
    "I do not believe," she wrote in The Washington Post, "that in the near term the Senate can correct itself from within.  ... But whenever Americans  have set our minds to tackling enormous problems, we have met with tremendous success.  I am convinced that, if the people of our nation raise their collective voices, we can effect a renewal of the art of legislating -- and restore the luster of a Senate that still has the potential of achieving monumental solutions to our nation's most urgent challenges.  I look forward to helping the country raise those voices to support the Senate returning to its deserved status and stature -- but from outside the institution."
     Senator Snowe is saying, with elevated tact, that the Congress behaves badly in part because the public tolerates it.  Many Americans don't vote or bother to inform themselves on important issues. Their neglect magnifies the power of the active few.
     To paraphrase that erstwhile political sage Pogo Possum,  if we look very far for malefactors in this situation, we'll find ourselves.  The profile we see in the worst face of Congress is our own.