“To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”
JFK – from Profiles In Courage
JFK is perhaps the closest thing that exists to a 20th Century bipartisan icon in today’s fully polarized body politic. Fox/AM often trots out liberalism’s martyred prince to illustrate “how far left the Democrats have gone.” That many observers do the same with Reagan to highlight how reactionary the GOP has become doesn’t account for the chutzpa the Hannitys and Carlsons show when claiming Kennedy would now “probably be a Republican.” Nevertheless, JFK’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of essays provides a wholly relevant point of departure to consider what kind of candidate we should hope for to confront the worst President ever to seek re-election.
Of course anybody with a pulse and not reliant on lithium to stay out of jail represents an improvement. Yet and still, why not seek the best we can hope for, not necessarily from a policy point of view, but from the standpoint of character. After all, the menace Trump poses stems from his ugly wretchedness as a human being. The extreme policies he embraces have more to do with his reckless desire to hold close a base of nihilists than any ambition to convey an enduring ideological stamp. Considering Trump in any other way normalizes his pestilence, which makes more likely its ability to survive him.
In surveying the growing Democratic field it’s gratifying to see that some of its most serious contenders are women. This clarifies Democrats ignored the rubbish put forth by too many that Hillary’s electoral ills were more about her sex than her imperviousness as a candidate. Indeed, as we witness the degradations a genuine misogynist foists on the office he never wanted, and certainly feels no urgency to promote the standing of our society’s better half while within, it is reassuring to witness a full quorum of qualified women prepared to mount serious candidacies. Yet and still, and quite obviously, that doesn’t mean they should be judged by different criteria, or receive passes based on gender. Where they’ve been, and how they got here, are as fair game as the storylines of their male opponents.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has thrown her hat in the ring and is a formidable contender for the nomination. In a field increasingly moving leftward, she may very well be able to stake out a significant chunk of moderate ground. Her contributions in the Senate have been solid; she has amassed a body of work with many impressive aspects which bolster her qualifications for high office.
That said, from the standpoint of the courage and character this cycle’s Democratic nominee should possess in heaps, a review of her past raises concerns. Klobuchar made her bones as a county prosecutor two decades ago during a period where voters, particularly white voters in suburban Minnesota, were demanding law and order as crime rates spiked. After being elected by a razor thin margin, the new county attorney was glad to oblige, actually embracing the Rudy Giuliani approach of aggressively prosecuting lesser crimes as a strategy to address more serious offenses. Trouble was, in Minnesota, just like New York City, minorities were disproportionately run in and handed sentences often out of whack with either fairness or common sense.
Nothing in the record shows Klobuchar as anything but glad to play along; indeed, after winning her first term by a 1 % margin, voters rewarded her get-tough approach with a lopsided reelection win. Meanwhile, jails in the state filled to capacity, many minority inmates serving stiff sentences for relatively minor crimes. Looking back from today’s vantage point, with sensibilities informed by a different standard more concerned with empathy for those whose basic civil rights suffered at the foot of policies catering to white fear, Klobuchar has some explaining to do. Her answers have left much to be desired.
Rather than owning up to the political expedience another time demanded, and simply acknowledge it may have been a mistake that she has now learned from, Klobuchar knee-jerked her inner swamp denizen and revised her past. Her tenure as the county attorney actually saw a general reduction in inmate populations, declared the Senator, citing statistics of an obscure liberal think tank that would not survive even a cursory double take. In fact, when the Washington Post’s fact checker, who has become any concerned citizen’s bestest buddy in the age of Trump, dissected her proposition, he was compelled to give her four Pinocchios…. a liar’s rating. Called to address the falsehoods she had promoted, a Klobuchar staffer spewed weasel inanities that are always employed when the gig is up and the goal is simply moving on to another issue and news cycle.
To be fair, Klobuchar is no outlier when it comes to a past checkered by that time’s political winds. Joe Biden ran a campaign punctuated by his resistance to busing in a state now defined by inequities its shoddy public education system creates. Cory Booker has been a sponge for special interest campaign cash, and way too good a friend to Big Pharma. Kamala Harris weathered a genuine scandal as a DA, resulting in the dismissal of hundreds of cases. And so on…. But Klobuchar is distinguished by her current response…. one that, stripped of its profunctory claims toward good faith, roughly equates with a typical Trump whopper. No thanks!
Surviving the Trump abyss in tact as a going democratic concern will require some overcompensation in certain areas. One of those, to my eyes, is a demand his successor lean heavily on some basic qualities our Chief Executive does not possess… integrity, courage, empathy, and an abiding adherence to transparency. Simply relegating the Democratic nomination to a contest of policy positions, a referendum on where the pendulum has swung, doesn’t cut it. To paraphrase JFK, we should be concerned about the path each has followed, and perhaps reward those who took a more difficult road less traveled. Klobuchar’s recent piss poor defense of flitting along the 90s’ “get tough on crime” jet stream badly fails to fill that requirement. BC