Time magazine’s Joe Klein devotes his column this week to delivering what he calls “Teddy” Awards — inspired by a Theodore Roosevelt quote about those who “strive valiantly,” at the risk of failing “while daring greatly” — for political courage.
To be sure, this can be one of those hard-to-define qualities. JFK wrote a whole book about various examples, most of which features prominent figures who put their careers on the line to take a principled stand, regardless of the consequences. Klein takes a slightly different tack, defining courage as “telling party loyalists things they don’t want to hear.”
That may not be the ideal description, but let’s go with it. First up, the Dems.
Given the lacerating politics of the times, it takes a certain amount of courage to call for sacrifice–a euphemism for higher taxes–but each of the leading Democratic candidates took that risk during the campaign. Hillary Clinton took the additional risk of revisiting the scene of her signal disaster, health-insurance reform, and producing what I thought was the best plan for universal care of any of the candidates. […]
At a moment when other Democrats, like Clinton and Barack Obama, were voting against funding the war in Iraq for political reasons, Joe Biden voted for the funding for the best of all possible reasons: because money was included for bomb-resistant vehicles that will save lives in Iraq. Biden is a long shot, and long shots are expected to be courageous. Obama has been a top-tier candidate from the start, and he wins a Teddy this year for an act of courage that really shouldn’t be: in the mildest possible manner, he told the teachers’ unions, arguably the most powerful Democratic special-interest group, that he disagreed with them on one of their biggest issues — merit pay. He’s for it; they aren’t. As a result, he lost the endorsements of most teachers’ unions, and the army of workers that goes with them.
Now, this comes across as a little self-serving. Klein is praising Dems for taking positions he likes and traditional Democratic constituencies don’t, leading to a fairly dubious meaning for the word “courage.” But whatever. By Klein’s definitions, these positions showed bravery. Fine.
It’s when Klein gets to the Republicans that he runs into trouble.
[John McCain’s] opposition to the use of torture, including waterboarding, also dismayed hard-core Republicans at a focus group I attended during one of the debates. McCain gets a Teddy Award with oak-leaf cluster for failing “while daring greatly.” Mike Huckabee gets an honorable mention for standing by his position in favor of scholarships to public colleges for illegal immigrants who do well in high school. “We never should grind our heel in the face of a child” is a sentiment that should go without saying, but needed to be said to his Republican colleagues.
Speaking of Republicans, GOP Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa gets a Teddy this year for crossing over to the House side and lobbying Republican Congressmen to override President Bush’s tawdry veto of a bill to provide health insurance to the children of the working poor. “The House Republican caucus vilified him for that,” said Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley, who tells audiences back home about Grassley’s courage. “But I was proud he came from Iowa.”
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates rates a Teddy for the speed with which his rational professionalism restored morale at the Pentagon after the arrogant, witless reign of Donald Rumsfeld. In a series of smart, consequential speeches, Gates has separated himself from the ill-considered ideological hawkery of the neoconservatives — in one speech, he actually called for an increase in the State Department’s budget, which is the first time I’ve ever heard a SecDef asking for money for diplomats instead of bullets.
Grassley, fine. Gates, I guess (he’s courageous for being competent?). McCain, not so much, given that his “opposition” to torture nevertheless led him to champion the Military Commissions Act.
But on Huckabee, Klein is just mistaken. As governor, Huckabee supported scholarships for illegal immigrants who do well in high school, but as a leading presidential candidate, he didn’t “stand by” his position; he dropped it like a hot potato.
The problem with Klein’s endorsement is that Huckabee has largely abandoned his scholarships plan. It’s true that as Arkansas governor, Huckabee supported providing college assistance to undocumented immigrants.
But early this month, Huckabee announced his Secure America plan, which would require all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States to leave within 120 days. Those who failed to do so would “face deportation if arrested and would be barred from re-entering the U.S. for 10 years.” (It’s awfully tough to get a college education if you’re forced to leave the country.)
Additionally, Huckabee recently received the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, president of the right-wing anti-immigrant Minuteman Project.
Klein knows this, of course, because he wrote about it two weeks ago — presumably before his “Teddy” Awards piece was written.
Pundits can show courage, too — by running corrections.