ManicDDaily

Untethered

I have been thinking about a post I wrote this morning about Richard Blumenthal, illustrated with a drawing of burning pants (liar liar pants on….)  and I am concerned now that I was too arch, too glib.

The fact is that even though I feel pretty disgusted by  Blumenthal, I also can’t  help but feel sorry for him.   He’s had a long career, a distinguished career, which now seems to be in tatters because of stupidity, hubris, and, perhaps, cowardice (fear of embarrassment, fear of consequences.)   Who knows how the original exaggerations got started?  Perhaps he did feel a true connection with those serving in Vietnam;  perhaps he really did feel spat upon when he finished his long-avoided service with the Marine reserves.  Probably, he genuinely does feel sympathy for returning veterans.

Is any that enough to excuse his mischaracterizations? No.

Nor is it an excuse to look to our culture–its emphasis on self-promotion and anecdote, where expertise is frequently alleged on the basis of minimal experience (see, e.g. Sarah Palin on foreign policy based on neighboring Russia).

I’ve recently been reading the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester, about the perfect English seaman in the Napoleonic Wars, and also just finished watching the new episodes of “Foyle’s War” about the perfect police detective in Hastings (England), at the end of World War II.   In the old-style British traditions explored by each of these narratives, the heroic impulses are just the opposite of those so common today.   These heroes are not only stiff-upper-lipped; they are close-mouthed.  They forbear to advance themselves through reference to even true accomplishments; a self-touting speech would be deemed unseemly, undignified, even dishonorable.

But we live in an age of self-promotion, an age when memoirists and fiction-writers alike make up their autobiographies; an age too where everyone takes credit for the good stuff, points fingers with respect to the bad, avoids liability at all costs.  (People use words like “taking responsibility” but shy, ultimately, from “owning up.”)

None of this lets Blumenthal of the hook.  Still, what does it all mean?   That we should look for politicians who have the strength and integrity to sometimes be embarrassed, or even openly ashamed, of themselves?  In advance of being found out?

Hmmm…..