Politicians should be able to admit mistakes
Published September 30, 2016
Editorial by Wilmington Star, News, September 30, 2016.
In Monday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump scored some of his best points against Hillary Clinton on the subject of trade.
The facts were that, as secretary of state, Clinton supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership publicly at least 40 times (according to The New York Time) -- and enthusiastically, not reservedly as she suggested in her debate remarks. She changed her mind as a presidential candidate, while she was being pressured by Bernie Sanders (not, as Donald Trump claimed, by Trump).
Yet Clinton caught Trump flopping flips as well. He tried to deny, again, that he had ever favored the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Researchers quickly dug up audio clips and transcripts showing that he was for it at the time and only began voicing opposition in 2004.
Playing "Gotcha!" doesn't make one presidential timber, of course. But one has to ask: How come our candidates and political leaders can’t just admit that they changed their minds, or ever made a mistake?
Ordinary humans make mistakes all the time. It's how we learn. Circumstances change. We learn more facts. Only in contemporary politics is changing one’s mind a mortal sin, a fatal flaw.
Politicians once changed course all the time. Abraham Lincoln originally favored shipping ex-slaves to Africa, since he thought blacks and whites could never live together in peace.
Woodrow Wilson (who once lived in Wilmington, by the way) ran for re-election in 1916 opposing all foreign entanglements. The slogan that year was "He kept us out of war." Before 1917 was out, Wilson led the nation into World War I.
Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for president in 1932 on a strict platform of balancing the federal budget. Instead, he poured on the red ink to fund the New Deal and, later, to win World War II. FDR also pledged to steer clear of Europe's wars in the 1930s. That changed, too.
Winston Churchill changed political parties twice, remarking, “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.” No one ever called him “wobbly.”
Now, of course, holding to old ideas, no matter what, and no matter proof to the contrary, is a sign of integrity. Changing course makes oneself a target for zingers. It is very nearly as bad as “compromising,” which in politics these days is seen as a sign of weak character.
No wonder that every political dispute turns into an unholy combination of WWE Wrestling and the Battle of the Alamo. No wonder that Congress never seems to get anything done.
We expect our leaders to be stone idols, perfect and unchanging. No wonder they disappoint us so often.
Things might run much better it we allowed politicians the privilege of being human and gave them a mulligan once in awhile when they take a wrong turn.
