Truth and Civility in Politics 1

'Let’s try it.' says Jim Wallis in his blog (God's Politics) ' For the next six weeks before the election, let’s focus on truth and civility.
Why? Because it’s getting worse. With the campaign season in full swing, the level of our public discourse has hit new lows. From politicians to commentators, I keep hearing the same thing, “We’ve never seen it get this bad.” And some of them are clearly helping to make things worse. The “birther” movement is alive and well, with its evangelists trying to convince the American public that Obama has stolen his Social Security number. Others are trying to convince voters nationally that the biggest issue on the ballot this year is that Delaware Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell told Bill Maher that she “dabbled in witchcraft” before she became a Christian in college. Democrats are all described as “radicals” and “socialists,” while all Republicans are described as “crazy” and “wingnuts.”


Truth and civility have often been casualties of elections; but this election and its aftermath promise to be the worst in a very long time. We saw things get pretty ugly in the last presidential election. After his acceptance speech, I defended Barack Obama against real vitriol by holding up examples of Christians who disagreed with him but did so respectfully. I defended Sarah Palin from what I saw as unfair and unnecessary obsession with her wardrobe and rumors about her family. But as the midterm elections get closer, things seem to be getting worse.'

Things aren't as bad this side of the 'pond' but things can go bad -especially when people stop listening to each other, or forget the microphones are still on (!) and when the press are avid for news stories and either ignore the good or exploit the event for their own ends. And as Jim says it is the build-up to elections that things get bad. Obama tells of how, when he was running for Senate he was determined not to participate in this 'dirty politics' but his team were determined to check his voting record and found two instances which they knew that his opponents would focus on.When Obama reviewed them he found that the first which was an amendment related to sexual morality, he had voted against not because he was did not agree, but because it would be bad law and his responsibility was to make good laws. The second questionable vote was, he found, a mistake, which he had immediately gone to correct in the Record – but this was not of course in the public domain; from then on these two votes were used against him to demonstrate his moral failings – indeed this is still repeated in a book exploring his faith!

This approach to assessing Law-makers is simplistic and does not reflect any reality but is used by extreme right wing to condemn those of whom they disapprove. But it is used here by the Christian Institute -see here


As I write Journalists are reporting that Ed Milligan has won the Labour leadership by one vote over his brother David and are now looking for some dark secret by asking his supporters if they could tell of anything interesting about him –with no answers. They are also speculating on how David will cope with his brother being the Leader. It will take an earthquake to take the Labour leadership off the headlines today!

We pray for our Politicians as they cope with the huge pressures they face today.