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Disagreeing Or Disagreeable?
By Wayne Trotter, Tecumseh Countywide News
We hear a lot these days about the need for civility in politics. Maybe it’s time everyone started listening to that advice.
The Town Meeting conducted in Shawnee Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, a Republican, was a case in point. A lot of Democrats, at least some of them organized, showed up to express their dissatisfaction with his position on Social Security.
A few picketed. A few were, well, contentious. A few others handed out little cards poking fun at the president’s position. To their credit, most showed at least a modicum of respect.
They have a constitutional right to do all those things. To the extent that they honestly and deeply disagree with any policy, they have an obligation to state their case in a public forum. They even have a right to be rude and disrespectful.
But having a right doesn’t always make something right. Interrupting a speaker, muttering insulting comments loudly "beneath" your breath and calling the President of the United States a liar all reach way beyond peaceful picketing. Those things may play nicely with the partisan choir, but can still make for stupid politics. It’s not much of a way to win friends and influence the very people you need to win the next election.
Both parties are doing it. Lots of Democrats hate George W. Bush with a passion and make no bones about it. Lots of Republicans feel the same way about Bill Clinton and many now transfer their enmity to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible candidate for president in 2008. You see a lot of it among the shouting heads on national television but until recently, the ugliness rarely filtered down to the local level.
It did in the last election for president and United States senator in Oklahoma. And it did in Shawnee on Tuesday.
We know the people who showed up to disagree and sometimes heckle Mr. Istook were sincere, but this was not a spontaneous event. It was clearly organized, even to the point of publishing advertisements paid for by Democrats to build a crowd for a Republican. And the same pickets showed up in Wewoka and Shawnee, the two places Mr. Istook stopped on Tuesday.
Again, Democrats have a right to do that. All Americans do. But when they start getting rude and ugly, are they being smart about it? Does flippancy translate into good politics?
We don’t think so. And we believe the trend in Oklahoma makes that point. When Democrats nominate caustic candidates such as Brad Carson unfortunately turned out to be, they get trounced. When they offer moderate, progressive voices such as that of Brad Henry, they can win. But election after election, Oklahoma Democrats keep slipping back and there seems to be at least a loose correlation between their despair and the depth of their bitterness.
Over the years, we have known dozens of congressmen, about evenly split among parties. We disagreed with several of them but with only one exception, we admired and respected them all. There was not a single one we would treat the way Mr. Istook was treated in Shawnee Tuesday. And although he got a little testy at a few points, we thought he handled it pretty well. He gave everyone a chance to have their say and even passed up some opportunities to fire back.
Perhaps the most unfortunate thing was that there weren’t enough few people there to show our congressman that everyone doesn’t fell the way the dissidents do. We didn’t see any elected officials from Shawnee or Tecumseh or the county on hand. Nor did was there a delegation from either the Shawnee or the Tecumseh chambers of commerce. The next time, it might be nice to make sure the congressman knows he has some friends.
And in the meantime, we all can lower our voices. This should still be a country in which people can disagree without being disagreeable.
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