Too many of our leaders let their partisan freak flags fly at the worst moments.
The phrase “this isn’t the time or the place” has left the thinking and the vocabulary of too many American leaders.
Begin with President Obama, who just chose the memorial service for five slain Dallas police officers in Dallas as the right moment to share his gripes about government spending and gun laws:
As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools! We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment! We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs! We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book!
A lot of gun-rights activists fumed about the sheer nonsense of the Glock remark. But even if Obama had made his complaint in a less glaringly inaccurate way – “too many poor communities have too many gun shops and too few libraries,” say – it wouldn’t have belonged at a memorial service, which is supposed to be about the dearly departed.
Of course, this isn’t the first time a nationally televised memorial service turned into a partisan pep rally; in 2011, the memorial service for victims of the Tucson, Arizona shooting that injured Representative Gabrielle Giffords featured attendees in T-shirts, loud cheers for Obama, and boos for Governor Jan Brewer, who showed up to pay her respects. Before that, in 2002, there was the memorial service for Senator Paul Wellstone, where the crowd booed attending GOP senator Trent Lott.
There are, of course, rules of decorum that apply outside of services honoring the dead, and they, too, have been broken recently. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to think the role of the justices under the Constitution is to act as presidential campaign surrogates. Three times in the last week, she made clear in interviews that she thinks Donald Trump’s election would be disastrous.
Why do so many of our leaders suddenly become blind to the circumstances of the moment, losing control of their impulses?
Her criticism of Trump is so unusual for a sitting Supreme Court justice that the New York Times had to write the headline they never expected to write: “Donald Trump Is Right About Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” No doubt the editors of the Times loathe Trump and love Ginsburg, but even they were made uncomfortable by one of the nine most powerful Americans suddenly engaging in naked cheerleading for one candidate.
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling,” the editors declared. “Just imagine if this were 2000 and the resolution of the election depended on a Supreme Court decision. Could anyone now argue with a straight face that Justice Ginsburg’s only guide would be the law?”
Ginsburg, at least, offered an apology this morning, admitting that her remarks were “ill-advised” and promising to be “more circumspect” going forward. House Democrats were not so conciliatory. They recently felt the need to interrupt a moment of silence for the victims of the Orlando attack:
The chamber erupted into shouting as Democrats expressed frustration over the lack of votes to restrict guns after repeated mass shootings.
“Where’s the bill?” Democrats chanted.
“Show some respect!” other Democrats shouted.
Some lawmakers walked out of the House chamber before the moment of silence began in protest, including Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). Earlier in the day, Himes declared he would not participate in any more moments of silence as a form of protest over the lack of legislative responses to mass shootings.
Why is this so hard? Why do so many of our leaders suddenly become blind to the circumstances of the moment, losing control of their impulses? Why can’t they be solemn and respectful during moments in which the usual partisan passions are inappropriate?
It has long been fashionable for pundits to note the American public’s steadily eroding loss of respect for its leaders. But it’s hard to argue the loss of respect is unfounded when those leaders act so disrespectfully themselves. And it’s difficult to picture a new era of greater civility, decorum, and courtesy for others being ushered in under a President Hillary Clinton or a President Donald Trump.
We live in a world where Arlington National Cemetery and the United States Holocaust Museum have had to publicly ask attendees to refrain from playing Pokémon Go on their grounds. As disturbing as that is, too many of our elected leaders are just as bad as the tactless game-players. If presidents, Supreme Court justices, and members of Congress can’t demonstrate respect for anything beyond their personal passions, why should anyone else?
— Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent for National Review.