Put on the Fools-cap and Grin....

Ross Douthat's column on the Arlen Specter Switch addresses the issue of politicians and their supposed principles. Well.....

I recently finished Adam Kirsch's excellent new biography of Benjamin Disraeli.  The Specter spectacle reminds me of what Disraeli said upon becoming Prime Minister: "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."  [Although, from what I've read elsewhere, Specter might actually be slip-sliding down that greasy pole. ]

For example, the way that Disraeli rather easily gave up his fight the Corn Laws, after so vehemently fighting Peel on the issue, "seemed to justify the charge that he had never cared about them at all, but merely used the issue for his personal advantage...To the very end of his life, Disraeli was regarded by his foes, and sometimes by his friends, as essentially an opportunist." (from Kirsch). 

But, I mean, what is the business of politics, after all....?

From Disraeli to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda ( not so great of a leap):

"'Confound it, Dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these things in public?....If you would seize an occasion of this sort to make an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time...'

'I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir,' said Deronda. 'But I cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession.'

'Why not?....the business of the country must be done...'

'I don't want to make a living out of opinions,' said Deronda; 'especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other men. I daresay many better fellows than I don't mind getting on to a platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honour for a party...'

'I'll tell you what, Dan,' said Sir Hugo, 'a man who sets his face against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable fellow. There's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good style - one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas...It's no use having an Order in Council against popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little acting.'

'One may obliged to give way to an occasional necessity,' said Deronda. 'But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and in another to buy a pocket foolscap and practise myself in grinning. I can't see any real public expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public man I might mistake my own success for public expediency.'"

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, Arlen Specter.....