We all confuse the two. Myself included. Because we feel the political is personal. And how can it not be? What is argued over in the halls and chambers of our political institutions very much affects our personal lives. Thus, we view politics personally and passionately. And it is very easy for judge those who disagree with you politically as personal enemies, as those who you would wish ill upon.
President Obama today in eulogizing the late great Senator Ted Kennedy:
We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers’ rights or civil rights. And yet, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him. He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect – a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots.
The implication is, and I think we can all agree on this, that we are longer in that time. And we are worse for it. As Americans. As Human Beings. Yes, there has always been vehement and vicious disagreements among us as Americans through our history. Yes, there has always been mean personal attacks between political opponents, from the feud between Jefferson and Adams to the song about the illegitimate child of Grover Cleveland to the fights between the Kennedys and Nixon. Yes, throughout our history we have had firebrands riling up crowds with lies and hate, from Father Coughlin in the 1930’s to today. What we have lost sight of is our mutual humanity.
If you want proof of this watch these wonderful remarks at Senator Kennedy’s wake by his friend, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, and ask yourself…. would it be possible for Newt Gingrich to give such a speech about Bill Clinton? Or Sarah Palin for Barack Obama? Or vice versa in both cases? Orrin Hatch is a personal and political opposite to Ted Kennedy as much as Gingrich is to Clinton and as Palin is to Obama. Today, it is hard to imagine the mutual respect, admiration and even friendship existing among our leaders today and in the recent past, on both sides. Perhaps we just don’t see it on the front lines, but it surely feels that none of us partisans feel the other side is human. We certainly do not view the other as patriots. I am sure the reason for that is the rhetoric we hear, like seeing critics of a policy proposal by a President they oppose literally praying for his death.
What I will pray for is that we return to the bonds we see below, between two men who could not be more different politically and personally yet who realized that they are completely alike because they are human beings with hopes and fears, joys and troubles, families and friends.
That is what I pray for today when we say goodbye to Ted Kennedy.