Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 9. september 2008 / Timeline September 9, 2008
Version 3.58. September 2008, 10. September 2008
08/08/2008
Arianna Huffington Speaks Out for Ethical Politics
By Don Monkerud
Forget about Sarah Palin. Focus instead on how McCain would
continue Bush's record of the past 7.5 years.
Important public policy decisions need to be debated in this
election, and Palin's personal life is merely an interruption.
"Every minute we debate Sarah Palin is a bad thing for Democrats
and good for Republicans who bring us more bad news every day,"
said Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post and
a nationally syndicated columnist.
That's advice given by Arianna Huffington Monday night in her
keynote address, "Ethical Dilemmas on the Campaign Trail," at the
Peggy Downes Baskin Series on Ethics, sponsored by California's
Monterey Peninsula College Foundation. An acute observer of the
political winds driving the election, Huffington made a number of
observations about our national political life.
We can expect to watch "the demolition derby of American politics"
over the next two months in both national and local campaigns
around the country. Candidates promised to run civil campaigns, but
Huffington observed that the media loves "the soap opera of
politics" and will bombard us with stories to titillate rather than
inform.
"The public is fascinated by spectacle, mudslinging and attacks,"
said Huffington. "The media wants a real battle."
Unfortunately, truth and ethics get lost. Focusing on peripheral
stories is one way the media makes it more difficult for us to make
ethical political decisions. Another is exaggeration that demonizes
the opponent; your opponent isn't merely wrong, he or she is evil.
In addition, the media transforms politics into a numbers game and
politicans watch polls, reluctant to make decisions that might
alienate potential voters.
Her call for "a partnership for a poll free America" won applause
as Huffington set a goal of bringing the 25 to 30 percent response
rates to polling down to the single digits. "Who are the people
talking to pollsters?" she asked. "A small minority of bored people
who will talk to total strangers?" Basing important ethical
decisions on polls is the wrong way to make decisions. Would the
Emancipation Proclamation have been signed if Lincoln was watching
polls?
In evaluating the two presidential candidates, Huffington found
that John McCain held high moral standards in 2000. He admitted to
her that he hadn't voted for Bush after Karl Rove's smear campaign
in South Carolina, accusing McCain of fathering an illegitimate
black baby. McCain opposed his party on a number of important
issues, but changed his positions after becoming the Republican
candidate for president. Formerly, he "could not in good
conscience" vote for Bush's tax cuts for the rich; now he wants to
make them permanent. He coauthored an important immigration bill;
now he'd vote against his own bill. Despite his stated opposition
to torture, he voted against a bill that would ban it, which
Huffington calls "the ultimate ethical surrender." McCain's story
about a prison guard drawing a cross on the ground when he was a
POW came directly from an Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn novel. And McCain
demonized Barack
Obama by implying that he would rather lose the war in Iraq
than the election.
"That's the worst thing to say about an opponent's patriotism; when
you stop seeing your opponent as human, it crosses the line for
me," she said. "Now McCain's just any ordinary politician like Mitt
Romney. There's nothing worse than when a noble man falls. It's
really sad."
Huffington found Obama's opposition to the Iraq invasion ethical
and "incredibly significant." Conventional wisdom at the time was a
vote against war would end any ambition for higher office. Recently
Obama told Bill O'Reilly that the surge worked beyond his "wildest
dreams."
"Why did he say that?" Huffington asked. "Why give up his
principals? There's nothing approaching reconciliation in Iraq;
they are only resting. It's like saying 'Mission Accomplished' all
over again-disconnected from reality. There's no greater ethical
folly than not being able to recognize the truth."
The left/right dichotomy is false. The American public is solidly
left wing today: 70 percent want universal health care, a better
economy, and less corporate control of economic life. Seeing
left/right implies the best policy is somewhere in the center; it's
not. "Don't talk about the right, talk about how the lunatic fringe
took over the Republican Party," she said. "The 28 percent who
approve of George Bush, who think torture and permanent war are
okay."
Bringing ethics into politics speaks to Huffington's own move from
the right to the left. Her personal transition occurred after the
failure of her assumption that private enterprise would step up to
deal with our major social problems, such as homelessness and the
poor. Now she believes government has to step in to "solve big
problems."
As we mature, our lives "become more about making a difference,
making the world a better place, doing something for others." It's
a process of maturity-becoming ethical. We become less
self-centered and more concerned about others. "We will be judged
for what we do for the least among us," she said. "The pursuit of
collective ideas made this country better; it's part of the
American experience."
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