KEITH C. BURRIS WRITES ABOUT CHARACTER AND COMPROMISE
Nineteen Republican senators joined Democrats last week, after much sturm und drang, to finally pass a $1 Trillion infrastructure bill.
Even Mitch McConnell voted for it.
How did this small miracle happen?
Craft, patience and compromise.
Especially on the part of one man — Sen. Rob Portman. He, with others, built a platform for this legislation. A bridge. In doing so he overcame the obstructionism of his GOP colleagues, the nihilism of Donald Trump, and obstreperous liberals not only in the House and Senate, but on the White House staff.
Most Republican senators, sad to say, simply want President Joe Biden to fail. That this might be bad for the country seems not to occur to them.
Mr. Trump wants anything that is not his accomplishment, or his idea, to fail. Never mind that action on infrastructure was one of his major promises and something he probably could have gotten done, with a little discipline and willingness to share credit. He is capable of neither, of course.
The liberals are still stuck in Trump hate, holding all Republicans responsible for all that was and is Donald. Many really want no part of working across party lines or rehabilitating any Republicans in the eyes of the media.
On infrastructure, Mr. Trump proved, again, that it was never ability or policy that sunk him, but character — the absence of it. He is much like Richard Nixon in this respect. Nixon was an incredibly gifted politician whose inner demons destroyed him.
And the maniacal hatred of the left got to him and drove him off the deep end.
This may have happened to Mr.Trump, too. Or maybe he was as crazy as he has appeared since the election all along. History will help us sort this.
It was said of Franklin
Roosevelt, including by himself, that he was not a first-rate intellect, like, say Churchill or Jefferson, but he had a first-class temperament — character.
FDR had it in spades. As did the man he beat— Herbert Hoover.
As did the man who succeeded him— Harry Truman.
As did Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter.
Character has to do with doing a hard thing; taking on a tough problem; or at least not shrinking from it.
Herbert Hoover, before he was president, fed a starving, broken Europe.
FDR fought a great depression and a two-front world war.
Truman and Gen. George Marshall — there was a man with character — rebuilt Europe for a second time in a century.
Ike won the war in Europe. (But later flinched at Joe McCarthy.)
Ford pardoned Nixon knowing it would likely cost him the presidency. He did it for the good of the country — so we could heal and get on with it.
Carter took a stinging, bitter defeat and turned it into the greatest post presidency in the history of the presidency. His was an ex-presidency of pure, and almost constant, service.
Character defines leaders, ultimately.
Many will say that John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama should be on this list. But the record is so mixed on Kennedy and it is too soon to say about Mr. Obama. He would do well to emulate Mr. Carter and spend less time with Hollywood people and the rest of the celebrity elite. When I hear him declare, perhaps from the environs of his Martha’s Vineyard estate, that he has not given up on America, I think, was that an option? Would Truman or Ike have found it necessary to say that? Would either have approached Oprah or Bruce Springsteen as oracles?
Help burning Chicago, Barack.
JFK and Obama had panache, charm and eloquence. They were, in a word, cool.
But character is not about charm. It is about courage— the courage to initiate and the courage to keep at it, and endure.
George Washington, with a single choice — not to be president in perpetuity — did as much to found and secure the republic as James Madison.
Lincoln preserved the union. He saved our country as Churchill saved his.
Rob Portman owns this moment. He has political courage, and character. He has done a hard thing. He has bent the system as other great leaders of the Senate — Lyndon Johnson Howard Baker, Bob Dole — did to work as it should. To do the people’s business.
And what was the method? Another lost word: compromise.
Compromise is the essence of our constitutional system, and of a working, productive Congress. The idea is not to split the baby but to build the bridge: Start with what must be done. (We have been talking about infrastructure since 1992). Then move to what can be done. (Two moderate Democrats and five to 10 GOP senators wanted to work together on a bill to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges, without utterly enslaving our grandchildren to debt). And keep building from there.
Compromise in politics is the art of the possible and the art of expanding what is possible. It is more like building a house than selling one.
It is a shame Mr. Portman is retiring. If the Republicans were actually a political party, he would be their floor leader in the Senate. I suspect he quit so that he would be free to maneuver for his last two years: To exert what leadership is still possible in Congress by building the relationships, compromises and bridges that can be built.