He condemned Israel for destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor. He suspended delivery of F-16s to Israel. He sold AWAC (airborne early warning and control) systems to Saudi Arabia. He condemned Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. He never visited Israel. William F. Buckley concluded that this President’s Communications Director, Pat Buchanan, was anti-Semitic.
As governor he voted for a liberal abortion law.
He was a proud Democrat for half his life and president of a union dominated by Hollywood liberals. Both of his birth children were and continue to be leftists
He withdrew American forces from Lebanon after Marines were murdered, thus giving confidence to terrorists that America retreats when attacked.
He made deals with Iranian theocrats.
On a number of occasions he raised taxes in order to get his opposition to go along with increasing defense spending.
As I am sure you have guessed, all of the above facts apply to Ronald Reagan. I am also confident that you agree that Reagan was not a Republican in name only. To the contrary, he was the most prominent and successful conservative Republican of our time.
The moral of this little tale: politics is the art of compromise. If we hold our candidates to standards of perfection, we handicap their ability to govern. Those standards will also inhibit our ability to affect change in the direction we prefer. Even worse, when we attack authenticity, we divide and lose.
It’s easy to mischaracterize the career of a politician by cherry-picking actions or statements that may, when viewed alone or out of context, make them appear to be insincere or contradictory. That is exactly what I have done in the first six paragraphs of this piece.
Pontificating is infinitely easier then governing. Many of the litmus tests proffered by the talkers among us would have disqualified the most effective conservative of our generation. Had Reagan signed a pledge to never raise taxes and honored that pledge, he might not have won the Cold War.
Doers are at a great disadvantage to talkers if we overlook the realities of governing. Cobbling together enough people to pass legislation is far removed from campaigning and criticizing. The responsibility of actually getting things done is very different from sermonizing and patronizing.
Senators from safe states can vote with perfect ideological purity without fear of voter retribution. Both Senators Cruz and Boxer can lead with rhetoric and vote with inflexibility because they are free of managerial responsibility. They don’t have to form winning coalitions among colleagues with different perspectives and strategies. They can afford to shine under the limelight cast through a straw.
We might want to keep this in mind as 2016 approaches. Candidates, especially successful governors, will be at a great disadvantage if their achievements are discounted based on the compromises they had to make in order to govern.