Civility

The lack of civility in politics since 1987, is enough to peel the paint off your fencepost:

"Summing up his case against Brown, Olbermann concluded: 'in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude-model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees'.” ~ Keith Olbermann. MSNBC. Note to Keith -- you forgot to call him a pedophile!

I cite 1987 because in my mind, the contentious confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork (b. 1927, Pittsburgh) commenced that year and marked the beginning of our current raucous un-civility. The rhetoric and fear-mongering mounted against Mr. Bork was crescendo-ing each day; the famous actor, Gregory Peck, appeared in a TV ad attacking Bork as an extremest; the AFL-CIO Union mounted a $20 million campaign against him; Civil Rights leaders made speeches. The speech most people heard, because it was televised nationally, was one by Senator Ted Kennedy, in which he said:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

The Economist magazine in its obituary of Senator Kennedy pointed out that none of his alarming allegations were correct, based on Bork's record, yet the smear was out there -- and it stuck. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Joe Biden, denied Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court.

And thus began a titanic "Tit for Tat" era of childish sandbox political tactics that has grown into a sophisticated array of scurrilous and defamatory maneuvers designed to discredit. To be "Borked" -- killed politically -- was coined by the feminist and Civil Rights activist, Florynce Kennedy who used it in reference to the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas.

I wonder now if a new term will appear to describe what happened in Massachusetts yesterday when Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley -- "Coakleyed." Whatever its definition, it will go into the politician's bag of tricks to be deployed at the drop of a hat or the whiff of a scandal.

The voting public deserves better than this. Besides, these people in Washington D.C. -- politicians and bureaucrats -- are our employees. We hire them to represent our best interests. Each time I see a new face get elected, I hope that maybe -- just maybe -- it is the beginning of a return to civility. Let's trust that Scott Brown feels the same way.

"So let us begin anew - remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof." ~~ John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inaugural Address