Truth Eludes Politicians.
Here Are Reasons Why.

By Henry J. Stern
April 6, 2005

We have long been intrigued by the difference between what public officials say publicly and what they privately believe to be true.  In some instances, the discrepancy is due to fear of reprisals — what will happen to them if they tell the truth?  Will they lose their jobs, or their chance to be reelected?  Will they incur the enmity of substantial contributors, or factions upon whose support they rely?  Will they disappoint people they know or who are important to them?
 
In most cases, however, what keeps these people from speaking the truth is not primarily fear.  In part, it is the fact that, in public, certain norms are maintained which are privately known to be false.  To take an obvious example, if a person active in the community has an incurable illness and a short life expectancy, it is considered unseemly to discuss that in public.  If the victim is a chief of state, his health is relevant in terms of arranging for the succession and the future.  But if the person is simply a high official, often an appointee, it would be considered an invasion of the victim's privacy to engage in speculation about his health.
 
There are many other cases where there is a social consensus that certain matters are not to be discussed.  They include personal and public issues.  For example, sexual orientation, adultery, children out of wedlock, personal illnesses and medical history are usually considered off-limits, except for high elected officials, where anything goes.  In general, the lower the office, the wider the arc of privacy that can be expected. 
 
The case of Senator Strom Thurmond and his African-American daughter is an instance in which many South Carolinians knew what was an open secret.  The daughter made the relationship public only after her father had passed away at the age of 100 (she was 78).  Thurmond received 39 electoral votes in 1948, fortunately not enough to throw the election between Truman and Dewey into the House of Representatives.  When Trent Lott said the country could have been better off if Thurmond had been elected, was he aware that Thurmond would have been the only president since Jefferson with African-American descendants?  And Jefferson is considered a very good president.  In Thurmond's case, the social structure that made the relationship illegal also made it inappropriate to be discussed in public or in the media.
 
Another obstacle to truth is the long time it takes between the conception of a project and the time one must decide whether to go forward and build it.  This applies to public works and to military weapons.  A spending program may be initiated which, in the opinion of experts, has only a remote possibility of succeeding.  But to oppose it would be to throw one's self in the face of the aspirations of those people who the program is intended to benefit.  If one could kill the program, and see to it that the money is spent more wisely, that would be one thing.  But to go on record as opposing it, especially when it is likely to be adopted anyway, is no way to make friends in Congress, or supporters when you have a project in your district.  The practice of logrolling, especially as it applies to the pork barrel, is a pronounced disincentive to voting on the merits of a particular issue.
 
There was a maxim used in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaigns for reelection in 1940 and 1944 against Wendell L. Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey.  It was, "Don't change horses in midstream," the stream referring to World War II, confined to Europe in 1940, but in all five continents in 1944.  In addition to not changing leadership in a time of crisis, there is skepticism directed at those who change their positions on an issue.  In times of crisis, people prefer constancy.  When the crisis is over, they can change leaders, as they did with Winston Churchill in 1945.
 
Candidates who change positions are subject to assault.  They risk being known as a flip-flopper, an epithet that will long be associated with Senator John Kerry, along with "seared into my memory", his personal recollection before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.  The trip was alleged to have been made around December 1968, although supporting evidence that the boaters on the Mekong ever reached the country has yet to be offered.  The journey may have been inspired the late Spalding Gray's novel, "Swimming to Cambodia," published in 1985 and released as a movie in 1987.

Changing positions on an issue may indicate lack of commitment to either side.  For example, Fernando Ferrer opposed capital punishment when he ran in 1997, supported it in 2001 and now opposes it again.  Mario Cuomo, on the other hand, has always opposed it, while Ed Koch has always supported capital punishment in certain circumstances.  Right or wrong, the two rivals for mayor and governor were consistent.
 
Once a politician has taken a public stand on an issue, he is burdened by his words, unless overwhelming new evidence is discovered to justify a new look, and possible modification.  The other difficulty in taking a position is that one may do so before one is aware the matter is the subject of public controversy, with a majority of the constituency eventually opposing it.
 
One wonders why developers build apartments that do not rent, and sometimes lose their entire investment.  The usual reason is that when they decided to assemble the plot to build, three or more years ago, market conditions were different and it appeared that the apartments or stores would be successfully rented.  The real estate business cycle does not respect the time taken to bring a large high-rise apartment building from conception to completion.  The greatest profits are made by those who are the first to build, those that follow risk the market becoming glutted.  The problem is that, in bad economic times, it is difficult to get financing for construction. In this area, government assurance may be of enormous value.
 
Similarly, a public official who endorses a project may find that in the years it takes to begin construction, underlying factors may have changed: a sharp rise or fall in the economy, a tragedy like 9/11, increases or decreases in the cost of labor and materials for construction, a climbing or declining interest rate for construction loans for developers or mortgages for prospective tenants or owners, labor conditions, strikes, boycotts, fires, floods, accidents — all the eventualities that impact the time and expense involved in bringing in a development.  The politician-supporter of a project may be embarrassed by changes in circumstances, or shifts in public opinion, which may depend on the skill and industry of those who support or oppose the project.
 
The entrepreneur is inhibited in changing his business plan because of the substantial investment he and his partners may have made in a project.  The politician is similarly restrained from changing his views because he and his supporters have an ideological investment in an attitude.  In addition, with today's widespread low opinion of public officials in general, but not in particular cases, any change in course, whatever the reason, is likely to be viewed as the result of a corrupt transaction, in which the politician is either bought off or frightened off an issue.
 
In addition to fear of reprisal, or of disappointing one's supporters, the complexity of some issues and real changes in a fact situation are very difficult to explain.  The press takes special pleasure in reporting the vicissitudes of elected officials' positions, with the readily drawable inference hat sinister forces have come together and had their impact on the poor devil who once stuck his neck out, or else kept it in.
 
In many cases, silence on an issue is preferable to taking a position.  For instance, a legislator may never know to what extent he will be pressured by the leadership of his body to see things differently.  He may trade his support for a bill in an exchange for the approval of public works in his district.  He can justify, or at least excuse, almost anything if he can point out that it was that vote that secured the passage of a bill authorizing flood control, crop subsidies, new highways or other tangible benefits for his constituents.
 
Today, elected officials live in fear of deep-pockets opponents, or the entry of a celebrity candidate.  Even if they are good, honest and decent, they may be thrown out if someone much richer or more famous seeks their office.  With regard to major names, in California, we have not only seen Governors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Senator George Murphy (a song and dance man), Congressman Sonny Bono and Mayor Clint Eastwood of Carmel (a fine mayor).
 
In Midwestern states, athletes have enjoyed political success.  Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Bunning now represents Kentucky in the Senate.  Gerald Ford played football for the University of Michigan, which may have helped him get into Yale Law School, which was helpful in his future career as Congressman, Vice President and then President.  It is notable that Ford, the best athlete to reach the presidency, was mocked by the media for his alleged lack of physical co-ordination, bumping his head on airplane doors, slipping on stairs, etc.
 
Probably the most illustrious college athlete to succeed in Washington was Byron "Whizzer" White, University of Colorado football star and All-American, Rhodes Scholar, and deputy attorney general until President Kennedy appointed him to the Supreme Court of the United States, where he served 31 years.  Basketball is represented by former Senator Bill Bradley, who went from Princeton to Oxford on a Rhodes, and then to the Senate from New Jersey, where he served until he tired of it and ran for president against Al Gore.  Weightlifting was the first step for a well-regarded national figure, whose principal impediment on the path to the presidency is the Constitution.
 
With the competition that politicians face from millionaires, performers, celebrities and athletes, one can see how insecure ordinary people are, especially if they hold offices beyond their means to finance campaigns.  Unless they are ideologues of the deepest stripe, most politicians are not eager to mess with anyone, unless it is necessary to advance or preserve their careers.  So you don't often see a politician running around as modern day Diogenes.  When today's public officials speak, the issues are often pre-selected, packaged and promoted as part of their business plan, which is to promote themselves to the maximum while keeping offense to others to a minimum.
 
Targeting is another technique in which politicians are discreet.  Members of some ethnic groups are fair game, others are not.  No one wants to be accused of going after people on the basis of their race or religion.  On the other hand, not going after people because of their race or religion is much harder to demonstrate, even when observers believe it to be the fact.  After all, in a world full of villains, like a barn full of geese, the skilled hunter can select the plumpest targets, as well as those with the least ability to resist or to draw sympathy from others.
 
The reader should not, however, be too upset over any of this.  It is just the way it is, and probably always was.  We recall the motto of politics and crime, Rule 29-B: "This is the business we have chosen."  Nobody has to go into politics, and those who compete can expect sharp elbows in their sides, if not punches to their stomach or knives in their back.  Nonetheless, if one's ideal is to make a better world for everyone, and one route to doing that is definitely through public office, it is not really satisfying to have to thread one's way through a minefield, while fearing to speak out about many things you believe (assuming that you have the mother wit to form beliefs that have intrinsic as well as expedient value).
 
The intent of this essay is to help reasonably sophisticated readers understand the edgy relationship between politics and truth, why it is not quite what it should be, and why one should not be unduly discouraged by the gap between truth (as nearly as we can discern it) and the publicly-stated positions of those whom we elect and those whom they appoint, the lot of them professing faith and devotion to the search for truth, justice and the American way.  As mere mortals, however, politicians are often inclined to stray from the straight and narrow, and follow the long and winding yellow brick road from which they may or may not reach Emerald City.  We should also be aware that, if some of these characters are fortunate enough to find the truth, they are quite likely to fail to recognize it.

---