Disagree, but don’t be so disagreeable
For hardliners on either side of the ideological gulf now driving Americans further and further apart, yesterday’s shenanigans simply turned up the heat, especially when former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, envisioning himself as our next president, charged Donald Trump was “too unstable” to perform the duties demanded by that office.
Governor, please. Get a grip. Pretend to have some perspective, even if ambition has robbed you of whatever fair-mindedness you once possessed.
Foreign enemies of America could not do a better job than homegrown dissidents in demonizing this nation in the eyes of the world, sabotaging its standing by undercutting its leaders.
When did we become like this?
It doesn’t seem all that long ago when that great liberal lion, Tip O’Neill, would meet with Ronald Reagan, a conservative to his core, for a collegial cigar, a spirited game of cards, indeed an unspoken understanding that they might have entered the room as a Democrat and Republican, but they fellowshipped together as Americans.
There’s something comforting about that image, isn’t there?
Norman Rockwell would have hit it out of the park.
Less than a generation later, Americans, including zealots ensconced in the media, would cheer at the image of President George W. Bush ducking when an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at him during a press conference in Baghdad, calling him a dog.
When did it become OK to loathe America that much?
On the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a Life Magazine retrospective opened with this sobering line: Americans were at war with themselves and both sides lost.
That’s what Abraham Lincoln feared a century earlier, before he even got to the White House. Three years before the start of the Civil War, addressing the Illinois Republican State Convention as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he borrowed from Scripture to warn “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
That’s no less true today.
Weld says he “cannot sit quietly on the sidelines any longer.”
Fine. But why couldn’t he have remained there until he thought of something meaningful to say?
Name-calling is cheap and not the least bit helpful or constructive.
Holding your opponent’s feet to the fire is one thing, but immolating him or her for political gain is anathema to the American ideal.
There’s an accepted way to disagree and offer alternative visions.
No one quarrels with that. It’s what makes democracy so vibrant.
But Bill Weld’s self-indulgence is shameful.
More than poor form, it’s a public nuisance.
Governor, we’re better than this.
Or we used to be, remember?