Public and Private Position

It's just one non-revealing revelation after another. This time it's about Hillary Clinton and leaked excerpts from those Wall Street speeches we've heard so much about.

The focus is on her saying that people get nervous about what goes on in behind closed doors discussions and that to get anything done in Washington you have to take a "private and public position." That is a factual statement about politics going back thousands of years. But for the sake of this discussion we'll stick to our country going all the way back to it's founding, that's the way it is folks, if you don't like it tear down the Republic and replace it with a dictatorship, then you won't have to worry about any of these things.

The simplicity of legislation is this, when it's working, negotiations between legislators and the executive involve bartering. If you vote yes on x, I won't oppose you on y. Public policy is created by give and take. Each party sets at the table and first establishes what they absolutely cannot do and then they set that aside and the persuasion and trading begins. It's ugly sometimes and not always subtle.

Throughout my life I've constantly heard people say they want a politician who will tell them the truth without the hyperbole and sugar, no they don't and their votes prove it. Taxes are the perfect example of this. The last Presidential candidate to state the truth on this said, "the difference between my opponent and I is he's going to raise your taxes but won't tell you he is and I just told you I am." That candidate was Walter Mondale and his opponent was Ronald Reagan. The truth seeking citizens rewarded Mondale by crushing him under their shoes in 49 states. Ronald Reagan went on to raise taxes in his second term.

George H.W. Bush famously said in his 1988 campaign, "read my lips, no new taxes." Michael Dukakis had said there would have to be some tax adjustments. Bob Dole was running against Bush in the primary and had also suggested Bush would raise taxes. Two years into his Presidency Bush raised taxes because he had to and his words came back to haunt him. Did he lie when he said no new taxes, I doubt it, I'm confident he meant it when he said it but circumstances change.

In his 1992 campaign Bill Clinton had a slogan, "It's the economy stupid." He promised a middle class tax cut. After winning the Presidency he had to speak to the nation from the Oval Office and admit he could not deliver that tax cut. He said that once he and his team had access to all information there was just no way to do it at that time. Was his promise a lie? I'm sure he wanted to do it but reality got in the way. He got lucky because the economy grew during his Presidency and the world was at relative peace, the Balkan crisis aside.

George W. Bush ran his 2000 campaign on a firm platform that the United States had to stop nation building policies, he heavily criticized the Clinton Administration for this and promised it would never happen under a Bush Administration. He won and after 9/11 he embarked on the most militaristic nation building policies of any American President in history and it left behind disastrous consequences. Was he lying in his 2000 campaign? I don't believe so. He absolutely used poor judgment on the decision to invade Iraq and a multitude of horrendous decisions after the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Politicians, that understand their craft, put forth the most positive vision possible, nobody wants to be served a shit sandwich. None of this applies to Donald Trump.

Skilled politicians and true leaders know that even when things are bad, a message of hope must be given to people otherwise a perception of doom will become a reality.

Many of our political leaders at the top know of grave threats that face our nation everyday. The multitude of terrorist threats and foul deeds by our sovereign foes that are defeated daily are never known to us. What is said publicly and in private are two different things.

You cannot logically say that the political leader who negotiates privately to achieve policy for the public good is somehow different from the keeping secret of those grave threats against national security.

Transparency of deals cut are important but how the sausage is made is only of interest to a small percentage of us and the small viewership of C-Span's coverage of Congressional Committees is proof of that. It's tedious but a lot of that sausage is made in plain sight and people ignore it because it's boring.

When your State's Congressional delegation negotiates with another State's delegation to repair bridges in your State, do you really care what promises were exchanged?

Our Representative Republic functions based on our trust in those we send to represent us. When any of those seriously breaches that trust there are measures to remove them, most importantly at the ballot box by voting them out. If criminal behavior is in question our institutions including Congress, the Executive and Judicial can and do take action.

Let us not pretend that horse trading in the cloak room hasn't been happening since the founding of the nation and let us also not fail to recognize that we the people often abdicate our own role in the process.

We have given you "a Republic madam, if you can hold it," so said Benjamin Franklin. Can we hold it? If we do not become a better informed electorate and understand what is important and what is not, then we face uncertainty. If we do not address the serious issues confronting us and start to truly deliver on the vision of our founding fathers where we actually are a nation of equals each able to pursue our personal happiness while recognizing the needs of neighbors and coming together in national unity to act where the individual alone cannot, then our Republic is in jeopardy and the promise of hope will continue to fade.