RIP Joe Lieberman: A Man of Principle in an Unprincipled World

Politics is tough on principled people, just as it was on former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who passed away Wednesday at 82 years old.

The rough and tumble of Athenian democracy bred the idea that whatever you can persuade people to be true and good is true and good. All one needed to do was to learn how to influence people. This bred a school of professional teachers, the Sophists, who trained men in the art of rhetoric so that they could win arguments and the minds of people through that power.

Socrates argued against them, famously, and, equally famously, came to a bad end — bad enough in the eyes of his student Plato that he sought to escape from the reach of Athens so he could be free to follow Socrates in exploring what the good is in itself. Plato remained wary and skeptical of democracy.

The Framers of our Constitution were well-read in the classics. They sought to avoid the mistakes of Athens and to achieve governance by consent of the governed without sacrificing principle and to so avoid the ruin that befell Athens.

As the first president under the Constitution, George Washington had such widespread esteem and such a deep sense of public duty that one might have thought our own republic would proceed through history devoted to principle above party and rhetoric. When, on principle, Washington relinquished power after two terms, John Adams thought that he could continue to govern as if party mattered little. 

That dedication to principle guaranteed he would have no second term. His brilliant and principled diplomacy that settled the XYZ Affair without a war with France pleased neither the Jeffersonians (who thought Adams far too pro-British) nor the High Federalists (who wanted to join the Brits in their war with France). Whipsawed by partisans on either side, his brilliance and principle counted less with the voters than party and partisan rhetoric.

Principle asserted itself again in American politics in the battle over slavery. The Whigs fell apart for sidestepping the issue, and the Republicans came into rapid prominence as the party dedicated to ending the spread of slavery. Abraham Lincoln forged a coalition of principle, first for the preservation of the Union but then on the underlying principle of ending the evil slavery. By 1684, he was running as a Unionist, successfully forging a coalition of all who would support the broad principle of a united country in which slavery was abolished.

In the face of the Nazi threat, Winston Churchill called himself a unionist, reaching beyond his Conservative Party to forge a coalition of those who would stand up for their country regardless of party. When Neville Chamberlain’s Conservative government fell in the wake of disastrous defeat in Norway, Churchill alone had the ability to command respect and allegiance from all three parties and headed a memorable national government that broke the Luftwaffe, kept control of the seas, and eventually built the grand alliance that won victory on all fronts.

Democracy’s reward for Churchill was that immediately upon the victory over Germany, he was turned out of office in a landslide, as his former coalition partners deserted him, and his own Conservative party was blamed for the appeasement policies that brought the war upon them.

Joe Lieberman’s renown is for being a man of principle in an unprincipled profession. He was respected for it and derided for it. Regardless, with the fewest of exceptions, his record remained untarnished. A domestic liberal and a foreign affairs conservative, he would vote by his conscience enough to anger both his own party and others who courted his partisanship unsuccessfully. He drew the Clintons’ ire for his public censure of Bill’s unpresidential behavior. He was successfully primaried by his home-state Democrat Party because of his support of the War on Terror, but he had the last laugh, running and winning his reelection bid as an independent.

His principles came from the deep well from which America has found its inspiration. He was a forthrightly religious man, willing to guide his use of the power entrusted him by the wisdom of God he found in his steady commitment to his faith. He had an apartment close enough to the Capitol so that if duty called on the Sabbath day, he could make the walk and observe his faith and his civic duties together. He spoke of faith openly and was not afraid to show his religious commitment, always. In a way, true to Jewish teachings, that afforded a respect for other Americans’ own faith commitments, which he rightly believed are the primary source of America’s strength. 

He was not successful, at least so far, in offering an alternative to our partisan deadlock with the Third Way movement, in which he was partnering with similarly independent centrists like Joe Manchin. And his brave Wall Street Journal op-ed, appearing only a few days before his passing — in which he took on Chuck Schumer’s shocking partisan betrayal of Israel — seemed not yet to have borne any fruit.

But Joe Lieberman was, first of all, a man of faith, and he had faith that the principles for which one sacrifices live on beyond our demise. They elevate a person beyond the partiality that is our human lot, and our willingness to endure sacrifice for principle attaches us to the great truth that can never be controlled our perverted by our shortcomings.

Churchill spoke of this in undying words:

The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.

Churchill’s words eulogizing principle and conscience could have been written about Joe Lieberman. Certainly, they are appropriate to extol the man and his commitment and to inspire us to have the courage to let the politicking serve principles rather than the opposite, which seems to be the rule today.

Be guided by this commitment to principle, and we all have common cause.

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