Remembering an American Idealist and Regretting a Wasted Year

The natural idealism of youth is an idealism, alas, for which we do not always provide as many outlets as we should. --Robert Sargent Shriver (1915 - 2011)

He embodied everything good and decent and optimistic about America. Sargent Shriver, who died this month at the age of 95, was a genuine American idealist. He believed in the power of individuals to make a difference and the power of youth to transform the world. He devoted much of his life attempting to inspire a culture of service and community activism. Few Americans today really know much about Sargent Shriver. Although his intellect and political skills were formidable, he was overshadowed by his connection to the Kennedy’s; the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was perpetually relegated to status of brother-in-law.

In the early 1960’s, when the United States resonated with optimism and the nation’s youth felt inspired to serve, Shriver radiated all of the positive energy and spirit of JFK’s New Frontier. When a young and charismatic President Kennedy declared in his inaugural address, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," it was Shriver who led the way. Shriver created the Peace Corps and was its first director. In its formative years, he inspired an entire generation of Americans to commit 27 months of their life in far off lands; to live among peoples and cultures that had, until then, been alien to them. Now in its fiftieth year, the Peace Corps has sent over 200,000 young people to impoverished and developing countries, building bridges literally and figuratively, teaching, learning, relating, and spreading all that is good and decent about American democracy.

Since his passing, story upon story has been told of how Shriver’s commitment and dedication, his passion for youth, and his unparalleled belief in the power of relationships helped change lives forever. He sent an army of bright, energetic young Americans on a mission of peace, armed only with smiles and a helping hand, and asked them to spread friendship and understanding throughout the world.

The Peace Corps emerged from an unformed idea articulated in a series of speeches in 1960 by presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, who called for the creation of a “Peace Corps of talented young people” to boost America’s attempts to win the hearts and minds of developing nations; an effort, according to Kennedy, that had been hampered by “ill-chosen, ill-equipped, and ill-briefed” ambassadors who were losing influence to the Soviet Union. Kennedy called on Shriver to transform style into substance. No one was better suited to the task. Shriver combined the organizational skills of an experienced and pragmatic businessman (he had spent several years as the manager of Merchandise Mart, part of Joseph Kennedy’s business empire) with compelling salesmanship and sincere idealism to turn Kennedy’s untested concept into a lasting legacy of success.

When the brief reign of Camelot ended and many of Kennedy’s aides and advisors left for home, Shriver stayed behind to lead the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, a more logistically difficult and politically complex task that required immense discretion and tact. Political enemies and ideological opponents abounded. Once again, Shriver succeeded where others had failed. He built a series of institutions – Head Start, the Job Corps, VISTA, the Legal Services Corporation, and other services for the poor – that thrive to this day, making the United States a better, more compassionate country. In 1972, when George McGovern asked him to be his running mate in a losing presidential election, Shriver was the one bright spot in an otherwise regrettable year. Along the way, Shriver assisted his beloved wife of 56 years in creating the Special Olympics, a cause Eunice championed the rest of her life, and which provided opportunities for young persons with intellectual disabilities to overcome stereotypes and to be recognized for their own incredible talents and abilities.

Shriver always challenged others to work harder, to do more, and to dream bigger. Not surprisingly, the root of Shriver’s concept of service was his faith. A devout Catholic, he tried to model his life after the teachings of Jesus. He admired Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and, starting in high school and throughout his life, asked himself every day, “What have I done to improve the lot of humanity?” As Jonathan Cohn noted recently in The New Republic, “Shriver’s Catholicism was in some ways analogous to Day’s: rooted in the ethics of the Christian Gospels; dedicated to working toward peace, social justice, and redemption of suffering here on earth; and concerned especially with easing the plight of the poor and the disabled.” Always filled with good spirits and good humor, it would be difficult not to be inspired by the life and times of Robert Sargent Shriver.

One of my enduring regrets in life is the lack of vision I demonstrated at the age of 22, the time in life when one’s youthful energy, spirit of adventure, and freedom to set one’s path are at their peak. I graduated from Wittenberg University in May 1981 with plans to attend business school at Indiana University at Bloomington, where I had been accepted as a teacher’s assistant in accounting and could expect an MBA degree two years hence. For the summer, I had a job lined up in the financial accounting department of Dresser Industries in Houston, Texas, where my brother-in-law was employed in oilfield services. He had arranged what seemed at the time a great opportunity, a summer working in a real-life, good paying job at a Fortune 500 corporation. So, off to Houston I went.

It did not take long, however, before I sensed that something was missing and that I had sold myself short. Although my intellectual interests had always pointed in other directions, I was captive to conventional notions of economic security. I could feel myself heading for the life of the “Everyman” and emulating Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, “Before it's all over we're gonna get a little place out in the country, and I'll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens..." I lacked vision and, worse, the courage of my convictions. I needed more from life and work but did not know how to make it happen. How could I devote my life to something more meaningful than the pursuit of money and profit, necessary perhaps to sustain the economy, but spiritually unfulfilling? I needed more.

Three weeks before leaving for business school, I experienced an existential crisis of sorts. While I did not yet know my direction in life, I was pretty sure it should be more in tune with my passions. Law school, which more closely appealed to my interests in politics, government, and society, had until then seemed out-of-reach. As the son of a minister and a school teacher, two traditionally low paying professions that could not easily support the ever increasing tuition at U.S. law schools, I could not reasonably expect much financial assistance, especially after my parents had just put three children through college over the previous eleven years. Ever the pragmatist, my father pushed me to pursue the practical professions, accounting and business. “You need to make a living,” he would say. When I took a course in Native American Literature in college, he snorted, “What kind of a job will that get you?” Although my father’s advice was well intentioned and influenced in part by his having been raised in the Depression, it glaringly ignored his and my mother’s own paths in life, in which service to others was their calling, their raison d’être. Even then, I felt conflicted by pragmatism and idealism.

When the manager of the accounting department offered to hire me as the full-time replacement for another accountant who was leaving at the end of summer, I mustered the courage to inform my parents that I was withdrawing from business school and staying in Houston. “I want to go to law school,” I said. My parents were accepting, but skeptical, afraid that I would not follow through and would find it difficult to make the transition back to school after a year or more of reality. But this was the first truly independent decision of my young life and, given where I sat in August 1981, it was the right decision. Later that year, I was accepted into a very good law school on a full-tuition scholarship and have been very fortunate in my career opportunities. I have no regrets about the path I eventually took.

When examined from a broader, historical perspective, however, my year in Houston was uninspired. Looking back, it was a wasted year, full of idle, unproductive time in which my most creative thoughts consisted of how to get through the day until happy hour arrived. Now, as I ponder the life of Sargent Shriver and all of the young Americans he inspired to serve; as I think of all the young men and women today who serve in the military, or tutor and teach inner city kids in programs like City Year and Teach for America, or commit to a year of community service in AmeriCorps, I cannot help but wonder why I was not more thoughtful in how I chose to spend that period in my life, before I was tied down with mortgages and children and college tuition. “If a young person has any idealism at all,” Shriver once noted, “it's strongest about the time he finishes college.”

A few years after arriving in Washington, I learned of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC), a social justice ministry founded by Luther Place Church, at Thomas Circle, when it was led by the Rev. John Steinbruck, a passionate and articulate preacher of the Social Gospel. Based in part on the spirit and model of the Peace Corps, since its founding in 1979, LVC has placed young college graduates (and others) into year-long stints with homeless shelters, HIV-AIDS clinics, low-income housing agencies, immigrant aid services, and public policy advocacy on behalf of poor and low-income people in cities throughout the country. Similar to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and the Mennonite Voluntary Service, LVC was inspired, consciously or not, by the vision and practical guidance of Sargent Shriver. Although I was fortunate to have later served, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, on LVC’s Steering Committee and National Advisory Board, I have always felt somewhat cheated for having never been among the more than two thousand LVCers who devoted a year or more of their lives in selfless service to the world, and who learned more from the people and organizations they served than they could ever impart.

I know, of course, that we cannot change the past or travel back in time. Sargent Shriver, as much as anyone, would insist that we look only to the future and commit to it. But if I could have done one thing differently in my life, I would have listened more carefully to the voices of people like Sargent Shriver and his cadre of Peace Corps volunteers. And maybe, just maybe, I would have made better use of my time in the fall of 1981. Everyone I have ever known who spent time in the Peace Corps, or LVC, or many of the other outstanding service organizations, have said the same thing, “It changed my life.” I cannot answer precisely why I was so clueless and unadventurous in 1981. But a touch of the Sarge would have done me some good.

First and Foremost a Preacher: The Anti-War Imperative of Martin Luther King Jr.

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action. But they asked, and rightly so, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. – Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and delivered the single most powerful indictment of the Vietnam War by a leading voice of moral dissent in American society. Before a large gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, surrounded by such heavyweights as Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel and Yale University Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, King explained why it was time to break his silence on the war. Though he had become closely allied with President Lyndon Johnson, he acknowledged that “when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war.” Over the course of the next 45 minutes, he articulated his opposition to war in principle and to American involvement in Vietnam in particular, condemning in the strongest terms the policies of a Democratic president who had, just a few years earlier, helped King secure passage of the most significant civil rights and voting rights laws in American history.

King chose Riverside Church to demonstrate that the anti-war cause he embraced was not a subversive movement, but resulted from a life-long commitment to Christian principles. He had “come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.” He anticipated, correctly as it turned out, that his statements would be criticized by many of his own supporters, including members of the black community who believed that King’s foray into the anti-war movement would dilute his efforts to secure civil, economic, and human rights for all Americans. He was “greatly saddened” by such criticism, however, “for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling.”

For King, there was nothing inconsistent in speaking out on behalf of the poor and opposing an unjust war. The build-up in Vietnam was diverting resources away from anti-poverty efforts at home and, because of draft exemptions that disproportionately benefited affluent whites, the poor increasingly were called to “fight and die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population.”

We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. . . .

King was first and foremost a preacher whose faith and calling exceeded national allegiances and compelled him to act within the meaning of his commitment “to the ministry of Jesus Christ.”

To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I’m speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men – for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?

King also had an abiding faith in American democracy and the principles upon which our nation was founded. Four years earlier, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., he spoke to the hopes and dreams of all American citizens that the nation would one day rise up and embrace the ideals of justice and equality for all. “I have a dream,” he said. In 1964, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, King understood that beyond the race problem in America was the problem of violence and “the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.” By 1967, however, his movement for non-violent social change was under attack from some of the very people he was trying to help, from the growing militancy of urban blacks and the rise of the black power movement, to the competing visions of more radical and less conciliatory forces. Yet as a follower of Jesus and as a student of Ghandi, King never wavered in his commitment to non-violence, in his belief that love was more powerful than hate, that to break down the walls of oppression and injustice required an appeal to the hearts and souls of his fellow human beings.

From the pulpit at Riverside Church, King ached for the soul of America and believed it “incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.” In a manner exceptional for an American social critic and prophet of his day, King’s voice of conscience crossed national boundaries. He reviewed the history of colonial repression in Vietnam and saw how western powers repeatedly sided with the forces of despotism and oppression in squelching the revolutionary forces of independence. Although in 1945 the Vietnamese people proclaimed independence from French and Japanese occupation, U.S. policy makers believed the people of Vietnam were not ready for independence, and for nine years “vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to re-colonize Vietnam.”

As a result, the peasants of Vietnam were denied a chance at real and meaningful land reform, something they genuinely needed, and instead were ruled by one of history’s most vicious modern dictators, Premier Diem. By the time King stood in the podium at Riverside Church, superior American air power and napalm had destroyed an ancient culture, its farms and forests; U.S. forces had killed over a million people, including tens of thousands of children. If King was to take his calling as a Christian pastor seriously, if he was to remain committed to his moral and ethical beliefs, he could not remain silent as the United States subjected a country the size of Italy to more than three times the tonnage of bombs dropped in all of World War II.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. . . . We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.

As a pastor and as an American, King also was deeply concerned with what the war was doing to the American soldiers who had to fight it, for “what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.”

It was time, King said, for the madness to cease. In demanding an end to the war, he spoke in language consistent with his pastoral calling and which implicitly embraced the Christian concept of care for the “least of these” as expressed in Matthew 25:

I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. . . . I speak as one who loves America.

King encouraged churches and synagogues to protest the war and to take creative actions in opposition to it. He then looked beyond Vietnam and addressed the wrongs of war itself.

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

King called for a unilateral cease-fire, an end to the bombing, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. Although in seven years, U.S. policy makers would accept the wisdom of King’s words, in April 1967, King was very much in the minority. President Johnson never forgave King for breaking ranks. A large segment of the civil rights movement deplored King’s violation of an unspoken contract. The mainstream press also turned on King. The New York Times called King’s sermon at Riverside Church “wasteful and self-defeating.” Life magazine said it was “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post suggested that King’s followers “would never again accord him the same confidence” and said he had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, and his people.”

King answered his critics during a television interview on July 28, 1967. When asked about the supposed contradiction between his efforts for civil rights and his statements against the war, King replied, “Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And wherever I see injustice, I’m going to take a stand against it whether it’s in Mississippi or in Vietnam.”

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, one year to the day after his remarks at Riverside Church. We will never know how American history might have changed if the nation had followed King’s advice in 1967. Had America listened to King, thousands of young American boys would have come home and lived to work and love and raise families of their own; the people and environment of Vietnam would have been spared some of the worst destruction in the annals of warfare; and America would not have ended its involvement in Vietnam on the wrong side of history.

As I look back 43 years later, it is apparent that the moral courage of a Martin Luther King Jr. is exceedingly rare. His was a lonely courage. He spoke out against the war at a time when the majority of Americans remained in support of U.S. policy. He branched off when the civil rights movement was divided, when supporters of non-violence were dwindling, and when the easy thing to do would have been to remain silent. He publicly broke from a president who had risked his political support in the South to help the causes for which King had fought his entire adult life, and he rejected conformity to an anti-Communist dogma that had dominated American politics for a generation. He exercised a most difficult form of courage, risking everything for a cause greater than himself.

I recognize that Martin Luther King Jr. was not a saint.  He was not perfect. Like all of us, he was a mortal human being with human flaws. No one understood this better than King. But today more than ever we need people with King’s exceptional courage and prophetic insight, his moral voice and passion for justice, his vision of peace and universal love. As a people, we are less complete in his absence.

A Reflection on Our Times

It would be easy to blame the tragic shooting in Arizona on the ugly political rhetoric that has dominated our political discourse during the last two years. There can be little dispute, after all, that the majority of the most irresponsible outbursts of late have originated from right-wing elements of American society. It is tempting, therefore, to blame Sarah Palin, as some in the media have, for repeatedly using the phrase “Don’t retreat, reload” and for displaying on her Facebook page the crosshairs of a rifle scope targeting selected members of Congress, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the talented and popular congresswoman shot in the head during Saturday’s mass shooting. It is tempting as well to blame the treasonous statements of Sharron Angle, who talked of “domestic enemies” in the U.S. Congress during her Senate campaign in Nevada and “hope[d]” that “Second Amendment remedies” would not be necessary. It would be easy to blame the anti-government vitriol of such right-wing talk show hosts and commentators as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, who routinely use heightened and emotionally charged language to fire up their audiences. But although violent rhetoric has become a part of the nation’s political climate, there is no point in laying blame on any political party or commentator for what happened in Arizona.

The fact is that we are a violent country, and a big country, and some of our citizens are mentally and emotionally unstable. America has a long history of political violence that has resulted in the assassinations of four presidents and attempts on the lives of six others. Credible threats are made against President Obama almost daily and extraordinary security measures are an unfortunate fact of life for virtually all modern U.S. presidents. Members of Congress, federal judges, prosecutors – all have experienced a rise in threat levels in recent years. We are a nation that loves its guns and we make it excessively easy for most anyone to obtain one, especially in Arizona. We depict gruesome violence in our movies, in our television shows and video games, and then feign surprise when mentally unhinged people act on those images. We live in a violent country that values individual freedoms – the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the freedom of association – even at the expense of public safety.

Whatever demons or voices may have influenced Jared Lee Loughner, it was American democracy that was assaulted by his actions, American civic engagement that suffered the most severe setback. As Speaker of the House John Boehner eloquently stated in canceling this week’s legislative agenda, “An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve.” Indeed, the tragedy in Tucson was an attack on the soul of this nation.

In my lifetime, this country has repeatedly experienced intense political divisions coupled with violence against our leaders. During the 1960’s, with the country angrily divided over Vietnam and civil rights, when civil unrest infested our cities, we lived through the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. The 1970’s brought us Kent State and Watergate, school busing and Roe v. Wade, and the nation remained divided and angry. In 1972, presidential candidate George Wallace was shot in the stomach during a campaign rally. During a seventeen-day stretch in September 1975, two attempts were made on the life of President Gerald Ford. In 1981, John Hinckley stood outside the Washington Hilton and shot President Ronald Reagan and his press secretary, Bob Brady, as they walked to the presidential motorcade waiting curbside. During the cultural wars of the 1990s, when we fought over gun control and abortion rights, right-wing extremists blew up abortion clinics and Timothy McVeigh committed the mass murder of 168 people in Oklahoma City.

That this country is divided on political and philosophical grounds is nothing new. From debates over federalism and state’s rights, slavery and civil rights, women’s suffrage and prohibition, Vietnam and abortion, we have been frequently split at the seams. In the 19th century, we faced secession and civil war; a century later, civil unrest, non-violent protest, and cries of “America, love it or leave it.” When John Kennedy went to Dallas in November 1963, Texas was awash in right-wing anger, fueled by the John Birch Society, over Kennedy’s handling of the Cold War, school desegregation, and federal interference with state’s rights. Leaflets containing the president’s photograph and “WANTED FOR TREASON” circulated throughout the city. When United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson visited Dallas earlier that fall, he was spit on by angry protestors. As ugly and grotesque as much of the political rhetoric has been recently – particularly during debates over health care and immigration – it is, unfortunately, not exceptional. It also is largely disconnected from the troubled miscreants who assassinate our leaders or fire assault weapons on crowds of innocent people.

We may never know precisely what motivated Loughner to shoot a popular and well-liked congresswoman, or why he opened fire on a group of innocent citizens, wounding fourteen people and killing six, including a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl, a congressional staffer, and three elderly citizens. Although he espoused anti-government passions, all we really know is that Loughner was a very troubled soul, a mentally disturbed man with a semi-automatic weapon and an abundance of ammunition. In the days ahead, we likely will learn of numerous red flags and warning signals that went unheeded, clues of his severe emotional instability, actions and words committed long before Saturday morning’s shooting that should have given many people pause.

Much of the commentary I have read so far on this matter has brushed over a principal issue: The refusal of this country to treat mental illness properly, and the lack of adequate mental health counseling in schools and communities. As long as we refuse to deal intelligently with mental illness, including its diagnosis and treatment, tragedies like what occurred in Arizona will continue to be repeated throughout the country.

The events in Arizona should also make us question, once and for all, the foolishness of a gun-culture which allows an apparently mentally unstable young man easy access to a semi-automatic weapon. A sensible and mature society places limits on who may lawfully own and carry such weapons. Yet we are the most armed nation on earth. With nine guns for every ten U.S. citizens, only Yemen, at seven guns per citizen, comes even close. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, since 1968 more than one million people in the United States have been killed with guns (accidents and suicides included). Is it any wonder that the majority of mass shootings happen in the United States? Is it surprising that we lead the world in gun deaths and homicides?

And yet, there are risks associated with a toxic political culture. Regardless of Loughner’s political influences and motives – his political views appear undisciplined and non-sensical, influenced perhaps by a variety of fringe ideologies – it would do us no harm to tone down our rhetoric, to refrain from speech that blames and accuses, that treats our opponents as not just wrong but evil, and instead discover words of hope and understanding. While ugly political rhetoric and acts of incivility in politics have been a part of the body politic since our early history, the consequences of our words and images are today more far reaching and fall on the rational and irrational, the sane and insane alike. What has changed is technology – cable television, the internet, and a 24-hour news cycle. “What’s different about this moment,” according to Matt Bai of the New York Times, “is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain.” Whatever Loughner’s politics, “it’s hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon.”

I do not believe that the tragedy in Tucson was the direct result of irresponsible political rhetoric. But if the horrific events of last Saturday shock the American conscience into more thoughtful and respectful discourse, if it forces our schools and communities to better address mental health issues, if it awakens us to the need for more restrictive gun laws, then it will have left a positive legacy on our nation’s history. Solving our economic, political, and military problems is hard work that requires careful deliberation, compromise and discipline. It cannot be achieved with angry denunciations and the demonization of our opponents. Nor does it serve our nation to lay blame on our opponents for the acts of a disturbed man beyond our control. Anger is easy; empathy, understanding, and compassion requires personal strength and discipline. We must learn, as Jim Wallis writes in Sojourners, “to relate to others with whom we disagree on important issues without calling them evil” and understand that our words “fall upon the balanced and unbalanced, stable and unstable, the well-grounded and the unhinged, alike.”

A Wish for Peace in a Time of Conflict

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
- John F. Kennedy

As I walked from the train station to work this morning, a cold December wind blew against my face. I pushed ahead, determined to trade the harshness of winter for the synthetically heated warmth of my office building, where I could sip hot coffee and look out over the horizon from my 21st floor window, past the Schuylkill River and the suburbs of western Philadelphia. Securing the scarf around my neck, my eyes focused on the sidewalk beneath my feet, I grabbed the top of my coat to insulate myself from the wind currents gusting violently between the city’s buildings. For three short blocks the cold air stung my face and I desired only to escape the harsh realities of the day’s weather. Meanwhile, a child of a drug addicted mother in Camden went hungry last night, lacking a nutritious meal and, more importantly, the love and support of a loving parent; a homeless man in Philadelphia found warmth on a subway grate and scrounged for food in city trash bins.

Yesterday, 3,500 Africans died of AIDS and 16,000 children died of starvation and malnutrition; another fifty children were killed or maimed by landmines in places like Cambodia, Iraq, and Mozambique; a dozen people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, as drug cartels and corruption overtake major segments of Mexico. Every thirty minutes, someone in the United States is murdered and 60 more are assaulted.

As millions prepare to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, two people are killed every minute in conflicts around the world. Millions more perish from hunger and disease, malnutrition and extreme poverty. And yet, for most of us, as we sing carols and hymns, drink eggnog, and open presents, we know little about the people struggling and fighting and dying every day.

As a lighted Christmas tree adorns the Blue Room of the White House, the Obama administration escalates the military conflict into Pakistan’s tribal areas and continues to fire drone missiles into villages in northwest Pakistan and Yemen in the hopes of making the world a safer place. Air strikes are clean and precise, like a video game, yet the reality of these bombs are tragic.

Last year at this time, as Christians the world over prepared to celebrate the birth of Christ, a U.S. cruise missile struck an alleged al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen. The strike was a “successful” blow against terrorism, as fourteen al-Qaeda fighters were killed. But as The Nation reports this week, an investigation by the Yemen Parliament found that fourteen women and 21 children were also among the dead. One week later, U.S. missiles fired upon another Yemeni village with similar results. The folly of humankind continues.

The more advanced we become, the further backward we move. In an age when all seemed possible, when we invented the automobile and air travel, cured polio, created the information highway, and landed men on the moon, the 20th Century was the most violent in all human history; the nations of Europe and Asia fought wars of unparalleled magnitude, as death, destruction, and unimaginable carnage were the order of the day. In Normandy in 1915, a young man lay on the ground in eternal peace, one of the millions who perished in the war to end all wars. Found among his possessions was a card inscribed with the words of St. Francis, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. . . .” Maybe he held the card for good luck, or perhaps it was a gift from his mother, who decades after suffered silently as she mourned the loss her only son.

Thirty years later, on the morning of August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, a city of 255,000 people. In one blinding flash of heat and light, the equivalent of fifteen kilotons of explosives was dropped by U.S. forces, indiscriminately incinerating the bodies of 66,000 men, women, and children within a one mile radius. Tens of thousands more died from the bomb’s effects over the next few months. Two days after the bomb dropped, a survivor recorded this account in his diary:

Towards evening, a light, southerly wind blowing across the city wafted to us an odour suggestive of burning sardines. I wondered what could cause such a smell until somebody, noticing it too, informed that sanitation teams were cremating the remains of people who had been killed. Looking out, I could discern numerous fires scattered about the city. Previously I had assumed the fires were caused by burning rubble. Towards Nigitsu was an especially large fire where the dead were being burned by hundreds. Suddenly to realize that these fires were funeral pyres made me shudder, and I became a little nauseated. 8 Aug 1945.

--From Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya.

A second atomic bomb packing even more kilotons of explosives soon befell the 195,000 citizens of Nagasaki, killing 60,000 more. Casualties are difficult to calculate with precision, however, because the great fires that raged in each city totally consumed many bodies and destroyed the city’s hospitals. It is said that the light emanating from an atomic explosion is comparable to that of the sun, the temperatures and pressure comparable to the sun’s interior. The light rays consist of thermal radiation that burns everything in its wake and penetrates the human body. In the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nearly a third of the population was killed by burns, trauma, or radiation. Those who did not immediately perish developed various forms of cancer; babies born to mothers who had been exposed to the bomb suffered brain damage; the children of survivors experienced harmful genetic effects.

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount,” declared General Omar Bradley in 1948. “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

As we sing carols on Christmas Eve, three dozen countries around the world will remain in a state of perpetual conflict and violence. U.S. troops will celebrate their tenth Christmas in Afghanistan. War will continue to cause untold economic and social damage to large portions of Africa, with civil strife in Nigeria, civil wars in Somalia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Burundi, and threats of genocide in Darfur. In many areas of conflict, food production is impossible, resulting in famine, starvation, and human suffering beyond description. Many of Africa’s children will be condemned to lives of misery, despair, and hopelessness.

In the time it takes to open presents on Christmas Day, four more children will be maimed or killed by landmines. Many of the victims will resemble an eight year-old Pakistani boy named Shiraz, who lost his leg when he attempted to walk home after army personnel told him that it was safe to do so. “But on the way I stepped on a bomb and it exploded there. My father tied a cloth around it but it kept bleeding. I was conscious so I could see the blood flowing out of my body. Then I was brought to the hospital.” Though he will never again walk like a normal child, he now wishes to become a doctor, so that he can help others.

“Peace cannot be obtained through violence,” said Albert Einstein, “it can only be attained through understanding.” As we celebrate the spirit of Christmas, sing our favorite carols, enjoy the dazzling displays of lights and ornaments, we can only hope for a day when humankind will put the kindness back into humanity, and the world will take stock of its senses. What can we do? We can start by promoting and supporting dialogue, by encouraging genuine exchanges among peoples and cultures that have otherwise convinced themselves they are at war. “If you want to make peace,” advised Moshe Dayan, “you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

Each year as Christmas approaches, I pray that nations and warriors will lay down their armaments and seek understanding and peace. History offers an occasional glimmer of hope. In the winter of 1914, on a battlefield in the Flanders region of Belgium, German forces were engaged in a fierce battle with French and British troops, when a most unusual thing occurred. With both sides dug deeply in their muddy trenches, some German troops placed small Christmas trees, lighted with candles, outside of their secured positions and began singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night). Soon, British and French troops joined in. A German signboard displayed, in broken English, “You No Fight, We No Fight” as British units improvised a sign containing a German version of “Merry Christmas.” A spontaneous truce soon developed, as soldiers from both sides put down their arms and left their trenches, meeting in the middle to shake hands. They helped each other bury their dead; they exchanged gifts – chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, tobacco – and they sang songs. In a few places, soldiers played each other in games of soccer. It didn’t last, of course, but for a few precious moments, there was peace on earth and good will toward men.

The Ambiguity of Faith and the Language of Religion

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be; and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its shame, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. – Found on Old St. Paul's Church in Baltimore.

When I was a young child, my faith consisted of the teachings of my parents, church, and Sunday school classes. It was a simple, straightforward faith, founded in a firm and unquestioning belief in the holy trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and eternal salvation. It was a positive and uplifting message, emphasizing the benefits of devout faith. I recall little mention of Hell and Satan; there were no fire-and-brimstone preachers, at least none that I confronted, and the people and pastors I met in the Lutheran congregations of New Jersey appropriately combined their faith with humor, compassion, and a healthy dose of secularism.

As the son of a Lutheran minister, religion has always been a major influence in my life. My father’s professional standing in the Lutheran church, including eight years as Bishop of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod in the 1970’s, coupled with my mother’s deep and abiding Christian faith, has profoundly affected my outlook on life. From my ethical and moral values, my politics, to my interest in other faith traditions, the centrality of religion in my family’s life has undoubtedly influenced my own. Growing up, I took for granted my Lutheran heritage and Christian education. Although I lived in culturally and religiously diverse communities – particularly in New Jersey and Massachusetts, with large Catholic and Jewish populations – I rarely explored or considered in any depth the religious differences of my non-Lutheran friends.

As I grew older, in high school and early college, my faith was less centered on issues of personal salvation and more focused on social concerns and issues of justice. I contemplated how Christian principles and the teachings of Jesus should guide our thinking and actions on the Vietnam War, racism and discrimination, capital punishment, poverty and inequality. But I continued to accept without much question the core beliefs of doctrinal Christianity.

The first intellectual crisis of my faith journey happened around my junior year in college, when a classmate – a Philosophy major, naturally – questioned my certainty in the existence of God and the major tenets of traditional Christianity. He asked some hard questions and provided reasonable alternatives to a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus. Although my faith remained intact, I did not have answers and I appreciated the intellectual challenge of my friend’s questions.

In law school and after, I became more aware of the world’s other enduring faith traditions. I studied Judaism, explored Unitarianism, and educated myself on the many and varied denominations and traditions within Christianity itself. I became fascinated with Jewish theology and history and began to see the importance of the historical Jesus and the Jewish roots of Christianity. When I read of the origins and evolution of early Christianity, my questions only grew. I continued to feel a strong pull toward my Lutheran roots, but intellectually and spiritually, I was increasingly conflicted in matters of faith and harbored doubts concerning the continued validity of orthodox Christian beliefs. The religion of my youth was no longer persuasive and compelling. The Sunday morning recitations of the creeds – the Apostles, Nicene and (less frequently) Athanasian Creeds – gave me heartburn. I no longer accepted (if I ever did) that Christianity was the only true path to salvation.

I continue to believe deeply in God and remain spiritually connected to Jesus of Nazareth. But my faith consists of ambiguity and doubt. I am not alone. Although roughly 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, less than half are actively involved in the life of a church. Many Christians, myself included, hover on the edge of faith, or find themselves in “exile,” because what they encounter in a typical church is unrealistically absolutist, exclusivist, or impossible to reconcile with 21st century intellectual thought. Many find it increasingly difficult to find a non-judgmental place of worship that welcomes doubt, tough questions, and an unfettered search for truth.

Perhaps the need to doubt and question is a natural part of the human condition, itself a gift from God.  Verna Dozier, the late teacher, theologian and lay preacher of the Episcopal Church, called ambiguity “the essence of faith.” “Faith involves trusting God,” she explained. “I cast my life on a belief that there is a God, that God is for me and that I can trust that. But I can’t prove it.”

For many thinking Christians, however, the creeds are problematic, at least if understood literally. How can one reconcile skepticism in a faith that seems to require theological exactitude? For Dozier, such reconciliation is possible if one views the creeds in their historical context, as part of the church’s legacy. They are worth remembering and reciting because they arose out of a very tense time in the life of the early Christian community, when a "major effort was to do away with ambiguity." We say the Nicene Creed on Sundays because we are “part of a community that says the Nicene Creed.” Although perhaps less relevant today, for Christians the creeds remain a part of the history, language, and poetry of their faith tradition.

I have long searched for a progressive Christianity that is less centered on doctrine and more, as described by Marcus Borg, a professor of religion at Oregon State University, “non literalistic, non exclusivistic, deeply in touch with tradition, but with a historical metaphorical way of understanding tradition.” In Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (Harper Collins 1995) and The Heart of Christianity (Harper Collins 2003), as well as in subsequent writings, Borg has spoken of the divide between what he calls “absolutist” Christians – “those who believe that Christianity is the one absolute revelation of God and the only way of salvation” – and those who occupy an “emerging paradigm” – people of faith who feel most comfortable in the Christian tradition, but who need a Christianity not rooted in creeds or dogma, but in a life of spiritual challenge, compassion, and community.

While absolutist Christians insist on biblical inerrancy and a literal, unquestioning interpretation of the Bible, on the other side of the divide are those who, like me, attempt to reconcile Christianity with the modern world, and who embrace advances in science, historical scholarship, religious pluralism, and cultural diversity. We view the world’s enduring religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism – as “culturally-shaped responses to the experience of the sacred” for which there is not one road to understanding and enlightenment. The Bible, moreover, is a human response to God, to be interpreted historically and metaphorically, not literally. A life of faith is one centered on a transformative relationship to God, not on the afterlife and the desire to be saved.

I believe there are many equally valid paths to achieving internal peace with God and many sound ways to express one’s faith, to worship, and to pray. Whether done within the framework of the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, the Muslim tradition, is not important. For me, the language of the Bible is symbolic and figurative, an ancient people’s attempt to express their faith, to make sense of the universe, and to understand their connection to God. It is understood only within the historical and theological context within which it was written.

Absolutist Christians appear certain and confident about their faith and rarely question their most basic assumptions and beliefs. Doctrinal certitude brings order to a chaotic world and provides clear guidance on issues of morality and salvation. But if certainty is accompanied, as it so often is, with feelings of superiority over other faith traditions, does it not blind us to the wondrous reality in which we live?

My faith is less certain and more ambiguous. But as Dozier said, with ambiguity comes “the awareness that wherever you stand, someone just as reasonable, rational, and good as you stands in an opposite place.” Are my Jewish daughters condemned to perish because they were raised, with my blessing, to worship God, the same God to which I pray, within the rich traditions of Judaism, rather than Christianity? I cannot accept that God makes these sorts of distinctions, nor do I believe that the Jesus to whom Christians pray ever rejected the people of his own faith tradition.

There will always be a debate over absolutes and certainty in the context of faith. For me, the essence of faith is compassion and the commandment to love God “with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:29-31). A life filled with compassion and love, a life selflessly devoted to pursuing justice on earth is, for me, best exemplified in the life of Jesus, a devout Jew who radically challenged the power structures of his day, who lived compassionately and selflessly for the sake of others. But Jesus is not for everyone, and that is okay, too. Christians do not have a monopoly on the truth, and many Christians get things wrong a lot of the time.

However one defines faith, whatever tradition one abides, whatever religion one practices (or does not practice), neither guarantees nor precludes the path to salvation, to spiritual fulfillment and peace with God. Differing faith traditions merely reflect the various ways in which God speaks to his people, his children, and in how his people choose to relate to the sacred in life. Religions are like languages. To be a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim in a pluralistic society is, according to Borg, “knowing and understanding the stories and vocabularies of your tradition . . . while being able to recognize the riches and saints of other traditions.”

I do not mean to suggest that there should not be core principles that define one’s religious beliefs. But whatever faith journey you choose, whatever faith tradition you follow, what is most essential is that your faith provides opportunity for a deep and spiritual growth, a sense of compassion, the support of a community, a commitment to justice, and an interconnectedness with God that brings meaning and a sense of purpose to your life. If it provides a rock upon which to stand when life’s waters sometimes overflow, if it helps you achieve an internal peace with God, then all are enriched by your experiences.

In Defense of Bipartisanship and the Deficit Commission

As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

--President Dwight Eisenhower, January 17, 1961.

When President Eisenhower voiced these words at the end of his presidency, he did so from the vantage point of experience and historical insight. Sixteen years earlier, he helped lead U.S. military forces to victory in the European theater and oversaw the occupation of post-war Germany. As president, he ended our involvement in the Korean conflict, stood up to McCarthyism, and oversaw the development of the interstate highway system. He had seen firsthand America’s capacity to set aside partisan differences to fulfill a sense of national purpose, in defeating tyranny, in mobilizing a war effort, and in building a modern economy. With the nation then on the verge of a New Frontier, about to inaugurate an idealistic, young president, our history was replete with examples of liberals and conservatives, the religious and non-religious, the working class and the educated elite, coming together for the common good. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy each understood the viability of American resolve, that when we commit our energies and resources to problems of national import, when we work together towards a common goal, there is little we as a people cannot accomplish.

In confronting the economic and budgetary crises of today, we once again need a bipartisan appeal to the national interest, a serious effort at compromise and problem solving. Although the rising tide of national debt is less understood, and often perceived as less urgent, by policy makers, the media, and the public, the long-term threat to our economy is real and substantial. It is a problem that affects us all, with the burdens particularly hard on future generations. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this year’s deficit alone is expected to be $1.3 trillion (that’s $1,300,000,000,000). The total federal debt is now at approximately $14 trillion and growing. Absent major adjustments, we will pay over $1 trillion a year, or nearly 40% of every tax dollar, on nothing more than interest on the national debt by 2020. The CBO estimates that an additional $8 trillion will be added to the national debt in the next decade absent significant budgetary reform.

Over time, persistently large deficits of this magnitude will only increase national debt as a share of the economy, push up interest rates, crowd out productive investments, retard economic growth, and cause serious long-term damage to the economy. As the country borrows more money to finance the debt, increasing amounts are loaned by foreign investors who collect the interest payments and siphon much of our economic output. According to the Center on Budget Priorities and Policy (CBPP), absent positive adjustments, “the national debt will climb from 53 percent of GDP in 2009 to 314 percent of GDP by 2050, or more than three times the size of the U.S. economy.” It does not take a degree in mathematics to understand that this is unsustainable in the long-term, that our ability to repair our declining infrastructure, sustain a strong national defense, protect the environment, aid the poor, and provide medical care to the elderly, will become increasingly difficult.

It is true that the events and policies that have created the record deficits were largely outside of President Obama’s control. There is little disputing that a decade of Bush tax cuts and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, are almost exclusively responsible for the current deficits. But while President Obama may have inherited the present mess, that fact does not lessen his responsibility to address the fiscal imbalance and use the prestige and influence of his office to propose solutions.

Unless we wish simply to pass along the debt burden to our children and their children, it is time to set aside partisan differences and develop real solutions to what is a very real problem. Of course, there is no way to balance the budget and to unburden future generations from the mountains of debt that we have bequeathed them without some combination of (1) tax increases, and (2) spending cuts. Yet these are the very things that politicians most hate to do, because they make everyone unhappy. No one, especially those with partisan passions, enjoys the art of compromise and making hard choices. It is, however, essential to governing. For this very reason, President Obama established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by Executive Order in February 2010.

The Deficit Commission, co-chaired by Erskine Bowles (former Chief of Staff to President Clinton) and Alan Simpson (former Republican Senator from Wyoming), is made up of a respected mix of bipartisan experts who aim to offer politically realistic and economically viable solutions to the debt crisis. As Jonathan Chait of The New Republic notes, the premise of the Deficit Commission is that “reducing the long-term deficit is very hard. All the options are unpopular. If you try to do it while imposing your party’s ideal vision of federal priorities, the other party will demagogue you to death and you’ll fail. So you need to find some way to reduce the deficit that falls short of your ideal while constituting an improvement over a status quo of letting the deficit run unchecked.” Or as President Obama said recently, "If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits, and the future of our country, then they're going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved."

Unfortunately, the initial reaction to a draft proposal put forth by Bowles and Simpson has been decidedly chilly. Conservatives opposed to any type of tax increase, including most of the Tea Party movement and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, are unhappy, while the Wall Street Journal editorial page is skeptical. The biggest outcry, however, has been from liberals. MoveOn.org commenced a campaign to tell the President “that Americans will not stand for this Deficit Commission report and he must reject it immediately.” Paul Krugman of the New York Times has said that “the deficit commission should be told to fold its tents and go away.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Bowles-Simpson plan “simply unacceptable.” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stated that the proposal essentially tells “working Americans to drop dead.” This is disappointing.

To be sure, there is much wrong with the Simpson-Bowles proposal, but to reject it out of hand is irresponsible and short sighted. First, the Bowles-Simpson proposal is not the Deficit Commission’s report – that will come later and will need the support of at least 14 of its 18 members; Bowles-Simpson is nothing more than a 50-page power point presentation of key talking points. It is a discussion starter, nothing more, nothing less. Second, liberals are ignoring a fundamental principle of democracy – politics is the art of the possible. Unless they can successfully accomplish deficit reduction on their own (good luck with that, especially after the midterm elections), they will need to work with Republicans, independents, and moderate and conservative Democrats to achieve meaningful long-term deficit reductions. Third, some of the ideas presented by Bowles-Simpson on trimming $3.8 trillion in debt by 2020 are very good and should be embraced by Democrats.

Among other things, although the proposal calls for simplification of the tax code involving a reduction in overall rates, it also calls for eliminating many tax deductions and credits that mostly favor the affluent, thus preserving, even enhancing, the progressive nature of the tax structure. While the proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction will prove politically infeasible, one alternative (based on a proposal by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire) would eliminate mortgage interest deductions on second homes and mortgages exceeding $500,000, while retaining the deduction for all other homeowners. This should receive serious consideration from Democrats. That someone should be allowed a tax deduction for mortgage interest on a second home in the Hamptons (or even Ocean City), while those who pay rent (generally the less affluent) receive no tax deduction, is unfair, regressive, and serves no rational policy interest. I understand that the real estate industry and its powerful lobbyists will be upset, but without some political courage and economic common sense from members of Congress, no progress on the deficit and budgetary reform will ever occur. As a Democrat, I am unwilling to allow my children’s future to rest on outdated assumptions and narrow special interests.

There are a number of other proposals in the Bowles-Simpson plan that liberals in particular should embrace. Reducing farm subsidies is long overdue, and the fifteen cent per gallon gasoline tax will simultaneously raise revenue and help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, encourage conservation and protect the environment. To its credit, the Bowles-Simpson proposal attempts to prevent cuts aimed at assisting low-income Americans and makes clear in principle that future budgets must protect the most vulnerable citizens.

Bowles-Simpson also refuses to treat the defense budget as sacrosanct and calls for tens of billions of dollars in cuts to unnecessary weapons programs and other wasteful military spending. Preserving our nation’s military strength does not require squandering billions of dollars on wasteful, largely useless Defense contracts and Pentagon programs. We spend almost as much on our military as the rest of the world combined. Including non-Pentagon, defense-related expenditures (e.g., Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays), total defense spending in 2010 falls somewhere between $880 billion and $1 trillion. Even by more traditional measures, total spending on the Pentagon, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will exceed $700 billion. There is simply no way to get a handle on the deficit and national debt without ensuring, at a minimum, that we pay for these outlays, and better yet, reduce them. The Deficit Commission appears to recognize this.

My biggest problem with the Bowles-Simpson plan is its failure to take on the Bush tax cuts, which according to the CBPP account for $1.7 trillion in extra deficits from 2001 to 2008. If extended, these same tax cuts will add $3.4 trillion to the debt by 2019. This is no way to reduce the debt. Maintaining the Bush tax cuts, especially for those making more than $250,000 per year, is particularly galling, as eliminating only these tax cuts (which merely puts the top marginal rates back to 39% over the present 36%) would save us $700 billion over the next ten years.

I also am not satisfied with the manner in which Bowles-Simpson addresses the long-term budgetary concerns underlying Medicare and Medicaid (which make up the bulk of long-term deficit projections due to demographic changes and increasing life expectancies of the American population). But there will be plenty of time to debate these issues. For liberals to refrain from the discussion, to take their ball and go home, serves no purpose, and undermines our concern for the nation’s future.

Speaking to the nation from the Oval Office in 1979, President Jimmy Carter declared, "What you see too often in Washington . . . is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another." Are we really that selfish and short-sighted a nation that we cannot find ways to compromise and agree on deficit reduction? Although Carter lacked the leadership skills to overcome the paralysis of democracy that he described, his description is nevertheless as accurate now as it was in 1979. If the President and the Congress, Republicans and Democrats, cannot succeed where Carter failed, if they cannot summon the nation to embrace a sense of national purpose and to work for the common good on behalf of future generations, then they will be leaving a shameful legacy and forfeiting the right to govern.

Saying Goodbye to Camelot: Ted Sorensen (1928 - 2010)

Overlooked during the hype of the midterm elections was the loss of a great American. Theodore C. Sorensen, a clear-minded and eloquent speechwriter, lawyer, thinker, and speaker, died this past weekend. He was 82 years old. The substance behind John F. Kennedy, Sorensen was the single most important source of JFK’s words and actions during the final eleven years of Kennedy’s life. Unlike his friend and intellectual soul mate, who died at the hands of an assassin’s bullet nearly 47 years ago when the country still possessed an innocence of spirit, Sorensen lived a full and engaging life. Yet by his own account, the world came to a standstill on that dreadful November day, his grief surpassed perhaps only by Kennedy’s closest family members, a grief that would be re-lived five years later in the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968. The Age of Innocence lost, America matured into a more complex, more divisive, more cynical country, which has only grown angrier through the years.

Kennedy called Sorensen his “intellectual blood bank” and, for the nearly half century following that tragic November day, Sorensen remained a loyal advocate of the Kennedy legacy and a vibrant link to the aura of Camelot that defined Kennedy’s term in office. He believed in good government, but not necessarily big government; a government that helps people and serves the national interest. He rejected the politics of pork and the pursuit of narrowly focused special interests. A product of the Great Depression with modest Midwestern roots, Sorensen believed in a compassionate society that embraces enlightened change and rejects the status quo where human ills and injustice go untreated. A proud liberal, Sorensen saw many of JFK’s best attributes in Barack Obama and he remained optimistic to the end that progressive ideals would ultimately triumph in America.

Like Kennedy, Sorensen believed that America must stand firm in its quest for freedom and democracy. But he did not believe that America should go it alone and he was dismayed with the unilateralism of the Bush administration and conservative calls for abolishing the United Nations, an admittedly imperfect institution, but one that remains our best hope for promoting peace and for addressing humanitarian crises in the world’s most troubled regions.

I never met Ted Sorensen, and a letter I wrote to him two years ago, after I read his memoirs, Counselor: Life at the Edge of History (Harper Collins, 2008), went unanswered. But I have always admired that Sorensen’s sharp wit and keen intellect accompanied a poetic embrace of language, and that he was a serious and unassuming man, with none of the Ivy League pedigree enjoyed by most of the Kennedy entourage. A bit of an outsider, he lacked Kennedy’s glamour and sense of style and was excluded from the Kennedy social set, where everyone seemed rich and fashionable. He maintained a permanently bookish air that almost single-handedly fed Kennedy’s appetite for policy memos, speeches, and legislative initiatives. Kennedy and Sorensen made an odd pair – the glamorous, wealthy politician from Massachusetts and the socially reclusive bookworm from Nebraska. But as Sorensen noted in Counselor, their lifestyle differences were offset by the closeness of their minds, for each possessed a lively sense of humor, a love of books, and a high-minded sense of the public interest.

The quintessential counselor, advisor, and confidante, Sorensen helped a young Kennedy develop into the mature leader he would become. From when he joined the new senator’s staff in 1953 as a 24 year-old University of Nebraska law school graduate, until Kennedy’s death in 1963, Sorensen was at the center of it all. The poet of Camelot, he helped write the most inspirational of Kennedy’s speeches. In July 1960, Sorensen drafted Kennedy’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, at which Kennedy declared that the United States was at “a turning point in history” involving a “New Frontier” of “uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.” Six months later, Sorensen and Kennedy collaborated on one of the best inaugural addresses in American history, a masterful, fourteen-minute speech that contained these memorable phrases:

• “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

• “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

• “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

• “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

Sorensen’s greatest contribution to history may have been the calm guidance and counsel he provided during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when for thirteen days, the world stood on the brink of nuclear destruction. At Kennedy’s request, Sorensen drafted the famous letter to Nikita Khrushchev credited with persuading the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles from Cuba and with averting war between the superpowers. The Khrushchev letter guaranteed, in exchange for immediate withdrawal of all Soviet missiles from Cuba, an end to the U.S. blockade and the withdrawal of American nuclear missiles from Turkey (aimed at the USSR). As Sorensen later explained, “Never had this country, this world, faced such great danger.” Helping to formulate a peaceful resolution was among his proudest lifetime achievements.

For students of speechwriting, however, it was Sorensen’s high-minded, inspirational prose from which Kennedy’s soaring rhetoric was born, and which helped make his presidency a lasting symbol of hope and idealism. Sorensen’s imprint was evident on Kennedy’s calls for self-sacrifice, civic engagement, and international peace. His eternal hope for a better world, his belief that the human race, however flawed, had the capacity to survive and even thrive amidst adversity, are themes that can be discerned from Kennedy’s speeches and statements in the early 1960’s.

My favorite Kennedy speech, for which Sorensen once again deserves much credit, was his commencement address at American University, which remains among the great foreign policy speeches of an American president. On that clear, sunny day in June 1963, Kennedy addressed “the most important topic on earth: peace.” At the height of the Cold War, this anti-Communist president called on Americans to see the humanity of the Soviet people, however repugnant may be the communist system. For only by recognizing that Soviet citizens were, like Americans, also people of substance, virtue, and accomplishment (in science, literature, and technology), could we find common interests and seek true peace.

. . . What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time. . . .

. . . Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles -- which can only destroy and never create -- is not the only . . . means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. . . .

. . . So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy’s address laid the groundwork for the Soviet Union to begin talks, six weeks later, on the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a major milestone in U.S.-Soviet relations and in the movement for disarmament. Forty years later, Sorensen was invited to Rome to speak to a local foreign policy group. He asked on what subject and was told, “Tell us about the good America, when Kennedy was president.” Thinking back on the American University speech, Sorensen reflected upon “an America admired for its values, respected for its principles, not feared for its might or resented for its success; an America that led by listening, worked with the rest of the world, and respected international law; an America that stood for peace, not one that started wars. That was America when Kennedy was president.”

Sorensen was a master at his craft. Today, presidents and candidates utilize entire teams of speechwriters, and most speeches are a hodgepodge of policy proposals and appeals to varying demographics and interests. When Sorensen worked for JFK, the effort was more intimate and collaborative, the results unmatched in modern political rhetoric. A speech should inspire, teach, and lead. Kennedy was masterful at this, and he could not have done it without Sorensen, who remained loyal and devoted to his friend and colleague until his dying day. Ted Sorensen having been laid to rest, it is fair to say that they don’t make speechwriters like they used to.

Looking back on Kennedy’s speeches and reflecting upon Sorensen’s life, it is hard not to be pained at what might have been had Kennedy lived to serve a second term. Sorensen lived a distinguished life and continued to provide advice to Kennedy’s younger brothers. He became an accomplished international lawyer, counseling the likes of Nelson Mandela and Anwar Sadat, and he remained always an advocate for peace and progressive ideals. But the pain of November 1963 never healed. “I do not know whether I have ever fully recovered from John F. Kennedy’s death,” he wrote in his memoirs. “Time passed. Love and laughter helped. But the deep sadness of that time remained, only to be reinforced five years later by the murder of his brother Robert. Those two senseless tragedies robbed me of my future.” Decades later, on the twilight of his life, the pain remained. “Deep in my soul, I have not stopped weeping, whenever those events are recalled.”

America lost its soul with the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy. With the death of Ted Sorensen, we have lost part of our idealism. We live now in a less poetic, less graceful time.