Limousine liberals, welfare conservatives on belief, interest, and inconsistency in democratic discourse

Political Theory

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 475-501

  Stark, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

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EID: 21744454477     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591797025004001     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. See Judith N. Shklar, Freedom and Independence: A Study of the Political Ideas of Hegel 's Phenomenology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 187; and Ordinary Vices (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 58-78; see as well, Dennis F. Thompson, "Hypocrisy and Democracy, " Liberalism Without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar ed. Bernard C. Yack (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 173-190.
2. A search of major newspaper and periodical articles on American politics in which there appeared the words "hypocrisy, " "contradiction, " "insincerity, " and "sincerity" turned up an average of 500 entries a year for 1990-96. See also B. Drummond Ayres, Jr., "Campaign Refrain: My Opponent's a Hypocrite, " New York Times, November 6, 1994, 27.
3. Select Committee on Ethics, U.S. Senate. Revising the Senate Code of Official Conduct, 96th Cong., 2nd sess., November 19, 1980, 84.
4. As Meg Greenfield pointedly puts it, instead of "[g]ood, frontal, rough political debate, " we try and suggest that "the other guy... doesn't believe [what he's saying] himself." We do not "confront the opponent's argument; instead [we] attempt... to discredit... the opponent" See "It's Time for Some Civility, " Washington Post, May 29, 1995, A15. (© Washington Post) 5. David Bromwich, A Choice of Inheritance: Self and Community from Edmund Burke to Robert Frost (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 158.
5. "There is no collective subject, 'we, ' making the decision within an agreed framework of considerations. There are only individual subjects and associations of subjects, deciding on their own accommodations within the framework of their own religious, scientific and moral views." See Covert Den Hartogh, "Rationality in Conversation and Neutrality in Politics, " Ana(ym50(1990):205.
6. Christine MacKinnon, "Hypocrisy, with a Note on Integrity, " American Philosophical Quarterly 28 (1991): 327.
7. Harry Frankfurt, "Identification and Wholeheartedness, " Responsibility. Character and the Emotions, ed. Ferdinand Schoeman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 34. Pursuant to much usage in both theory and discourse, I will employ the terms "selfish interests, " "personal interests, " or "judgment-encumbering interests" to refer to those "elements"-that is, traits, characteristics-that, while part of the self or the person (hence the adjectives "selfish" and "personal"), are, on whatever view is under discussion, "external" to the subject, external to that particular bundle of "elements" that constitutes the genuine subject's capacity for judgment The latter I generally refer to as "subjectively constitutive commitments and beliefs." It is possible, of course, that some "elements" that encumber the subject's capacity for judgment in certain kinds of situations may in others be constitutive of the capacity to judge. But this possibility is irrelevant to the democratic-discursive issues here, which (as will become evident) already confine themselves to "local, " not "global, " conceptions of the subject For a useful discussion, see Amélie O. Rorty, "A Literary Postscript: Characters, Persons, Selves, Individuals, " The Identities of Persons, ed. A. O. Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).
8. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 214.
9. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, "Moral Conflict and Political Consensus, " Ethics 101 (1990): 78.
10. See Michael Arbanas, "Nice-Guys Thornton, Keet, Give Personal Attacks a Try, " Arkansas Gazette, October 1, 1990, B l, B2. The term "limousine liberal" was coined by Mario Proccacino to describe his opponent, John V. Lindsay, during the New York City mayoral campaign of 1969.
11. Michael Rezendes, "Foes Say Rappaport Hypocritical on Aid, " Boston Globe, August 25, 1990, 28; Steve Marantz, "Kerry Seeks Data on Subsidy, " Boston Globe, October 11, 1990, 39; Steve Marante, "Kerry vs. Rappaport Mud over Matters, " Boston Globe, October 15, 1990, 1, 24.
12. E. J. Dionne, Jr., "Dole vs. Hollywood, " Washington Post, June 6, 1995, A19.
13. Craig Horowitz, "New York's Liberals Have Fallen and They Can't Get Up, " New York, July 10, 1995, 46; see also James J. Cramer, "Confessions of a Limousine Neoliberal, " New York, March 11, 1996, 35-8.
14. Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic andMau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970), 43.
15. See "Hebert Ends Hunger Strike, " Globe and Mail, April 1, 1986, Al.
16. See David Loth, A History of Graft in America (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970), 291.
17. Frankfurt, "Identification and Wholeheartedness, " 43.
18. Lany Liebart, "Lujan Looks for Ways to Promote Offshore Drilling, " San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1990, A2.
19. See Robert Pear, "Kerrey's Companies Provide Few with Medical Coverage, " New York Times, December 28, 1991, Al; Kathy Sawyer and Mark Stencel, "Chipping at Keney Comerstone, " Washington Post, December 29, 1991, A10.
20. It may, in some circumstances, appear not only as if such a politician is acting against his own subjective commitments-that is, against characteristics that constitute him as a moral agent-but, in addition, that he is doing so to serve certain other judgment-encumbering interests in political popularity or electoral success (he may be concerned about the political consequences attendant on being thought pro-gay or known to be gay). Such an interpretation would further remove his political stance against gay rights from the realm of the genuine. But the reverse possibility is also available. For example, politicians who change issue-positions-thereby arguably betraying their own subjective commitments-can point to the electoral consequences attending the switch as evidence that they would not have undergone it had they not genuinely changed their minds. For example, when her government abandoned an election commitment to abolish Canada's Goods and Services Tax (GST), Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps, according to her supporters, "actually showed integrity in voting for a budget that did not abolish the GST even though she knew there would be consequences for her." See Murray Campbell, "Bets Are Off in Coppsville If Voters Punish Grits, " Globe and Mail, June 14, 1996, A4.
21. See Kathy Kiely, "In Safe-Water Debate, a Charge of 'Hypocrisy on Tap, ' " Houston Post, April 20, 1994, A12. A variant would be the extremely wealthy liberal who would not even notice the effect of the redisrributionist policy she advocates, though its burdens would be felt by many who (though comfortable by some standards) are less well off than she.
22. See, for example, Brian Timmons, "That's No Okie, That's My Torts Professor, " Wall Street Journal, April 3, 1990, A2.
23. Lynne McFall, "Integrity, " Ethics 98 (1987): 7.
24. Members of Congress, to take another set of examples, have been accused of hypocrisy on both scores-for effecting policies that would go against their interests were they to be affected by them, or for ineffectively advocating policies that would adversely affect them. Congressmen who passed equal-opportunity employment legislation-that is, legislation affecting all firms and institutions except Congress itself-attracted charges of hypocrisy. And so have those who advocate politically popular campaign-finance reforms counter to their own electoral interests, knowing full well that their colleagues will vote against such measures in sufficient numbers to ensure their defeat. See, for example, "Democracy and Hypocrisy, " New York Times, August 6, 1992; and Kent Jenkins, Jr., "Fiscal Reality of Congress Sets in for Rep. Moran; Donations Bring Charges of Hypocrisy, " Washington Post, February 11, 1991, Dl.
25. See "Honor and Hypocrisy, " Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1994, A8.
26. Bernard Williams, "Politics and Moral Character, " Public and Private Morality, ed. Stuart Hampshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 73.
27. See John M. McGuire and Bill McCIellan, "Peach: Hypocrisy Not an Issue, " St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 15, 1992, 10A.
28. Officials, of course, are precisely those who are most likely to avail themselves of a "moral conflicts" interpretation in the first place. Because they have a mandate-derived obligation to pursue their policy views full-tilt, any potentially adversely affected personal interest constitutes an unacceptable friction, a drag on their capacity to fulfill their official functions. Ordinary citizens, by contrast, are under no obligation to advocate, let alone pursue, any particular policy program. That a citizen may nevertheless choose even to utter a policy position that could adversely affect her selfish interests is, therefore, more likely to seem courageous; we are more likely to interpret that inconsistent interest as providing reassuring traction, a fixed point from which any policy distance seems reassuring.
29. "I believe, " Donaldson added by way of analogy, "that taxes on high-wage earners should be raised but [do] not feel compelled to send in more money from my bank account until they are raised. While I drive the speed limit of sixty-five, I believe it should be lowered to fifty-five." See Howard Kurtz, "The Hounded News Hound, " Washington Post, May 12, 1995, Bl.
30. Stephen Chapman, "Abortion and Dan Quayle's Daughter: A Phony Issue, " Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1992, sec. 4, p. 5; Michael Putzel, "Quayle Accused of Abortion Hypocrisy, " Boston Globe, July 24, 1992, 9.
31. Timothy J. McNulty, "Bush on Abortion: Humane or Hypocritical?" Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1992, 12.
32. "Hypocrisy in the GOP, " Denver Post, August 18, 1992, 6B.
33. Consider, just to tie up a loose end, the situation of Jim Rappaport, who like Sam Donaldson accepted subsidies personally while opposing them politically but, unlike Donaldson, sought election to be among the effectors, not just the affected, of an anti-subsidy policy. For Rappaport it would not have gone over well, had he depicted his subsidy taking as signifying a subjective belief in the legitimacy of drawing subsidies as long as the law permits. After all, he was seeking a mandate to effect changes in that law, and his taking subsidies arguably put in question his commitment to making those changes. On the other hand, Rappaport might more plausibly have depicted his inconsistent subsidy taking as a self-serving interest, because he could then have made the claim-given the real efficacy of a senatorial candidate's public utterances-to have been courageously pursuing a particular policy path notwithstanding his own contrary selfish interests.
34. This term enjoys broad currency in American political discourse. For example, in the California senatorial campaign of 1988, Democrat Leo McCarthy accused Republican Pete Wilson of being a "country-club conservative." See Frank Clifford, "The California Primary Race for Senate Shifting out of Low Gear, " Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1988, 3.
35. Mark Oswald, "Thomton Capitalizing on Keel's 'Boat, ' " Arkansas Democrat, October 2, 1990.B7.
36. John Brummett, "Keel's Talk of Working Families and Two Boats Controversial, " Arkansas Democrat, September 29, 1990.
37. Jeffrey Simpson, "There's a Refreshing Voice in the NDP but It May Not Be Heard, " Globe and Mail, August 10, 1995, A16. "I long, " Simpson adds, "for some plutocrat who might say something original." Similarly, presidential candidate Steve Forbes, a holder of greal wealth, found himself attacked for proposing a flat tax from which he would have personally benefited. Yet, the fact that he was also placing much ofthat wealth at stake in Ihe campaign-by spending vasl sums on television advertising-suggested lo some (such as a "homemaker" from Nashua, New Hampshire) that "he's sincere in what he says" (Richard L. Berke, "Vox Populist: Just Regular Working Class Guys, " New York Times, February 4, 1996, sec. 4, p. 4). And on yet another interprelation, "[W]hen Steve Forbes pushes his flat-tax proposal, charges that he, more than almost any other American, will personally benefit from il fail lo stick. No, he is a man acting out of pure principle. He is not ttying lo gel rich; he already is rich" (Michael Lewis, "Presidenl and C.E.O., " New York Times Magazine, February 18, 1996, 22). Jusl as a limousine liberal can be so rich lhal Ihe anti-weallh public positions she takes fail lo attain "virtuous" inconsistency, so (apparently) a country club conservative can attain such wealth that any public position consistent with it fails to trouble us.
38. See Jane Coutts, "Minister's Aide out of Job after Using OHIP Billing Data, " Globe and Mail, December 7, 1996, All. In a different context, Denis Donoghue, in favorably reviewing a recent book supportive of political and civic rights for homosexuals in America, declares, "I am not, in my own person, directly caught up in [the issue]. But I should declare an interest My youngest daughter... is a lesbian." Donoghue then goes on, however, to describe his relationship with his daughter in terms that leave no doubt about his genuine love for and commitment to her. His discussion, in other words, certainly allows for the conclusion that the relationship is part of what constitutes his subjectivity, who he is as a critic, and whatever genuine capacity he brings to judging a work on its merits-notwithstanding that he felt compelled to declare it as a possible encumbering interest See Denis Donoghue, "The Politics of Homosexuality, " review of Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality, by Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Book Review, August 20, 1995, 26.
39. Presumably, it is this dynamic A. V. Dicey had in mind when he wrote that "there exists so much misunderstanding as to the connection between men's interests and their beliefs... individuals indeed do constantly support laws or institutions that they deem of benefit to themselves but which are injurious to the rest of the world.... [B]ut in nine out of ten cases, men come easily to believe that arrangements agreeable to themselves are beneficial to others. A man's interest gives a bias to his judgment far offener than it corrupts his heart." Although Dicey's terminology differs from the one I am using, I interpret him to say that a person's interest can enter and weave itself into his subjectivity to the point at which others may disagree with it on the merits ("injurious to the rest of the world") but he does not. The interest is no longer a corruption or encumbrance, but part of the subject, the individual's own particular capacity for unencumbered judgment (even if still "biasing" from some objective point of view). Similarly, Kinsley, while acknowledging that his imagined lobbyist is "not objective" in some absolute sense, denies he is biased in a subjective sense; that is, that his pro-industry views flow from an encumbering interest, not the subject itself. See Dicey, Lectures on the Relationship bebveen Law and Public Opinion in England (London: Murray, 1893), 151.
40. Frank Bruni, "On the Trail She's Now First Mom and Wife, " New York Times, October 13, 1996.A16.
41. Robin Toner, "In Final Rounds, Parties Wield Bare-Knuckle Ads, " New York Times, October 21, 1996, A12.
42. George Waldon, "Ode to an Entrepreneur, " Arkansas Business, May 6, 1991, 4.
43. See Connie Brück, "Hillary the Pol, " New Yorker, May 30, 1994, 58-96. An ambiguity may seem to lurk in this example in that Bill Clinton was the one in a position to dispense the "quo, " whereas Hillary Clinton was the one who received any "quid." Whether and to what extent mutual autonomy within the domestic sphere exists for elected officials and their spouses, for whom the line between public and private is all but effaced, is a large question I cannot address here. But discourse surrounding Hillary Clinton, even in her Arkansas years, treated her as an official; and indeed Mrs. Clinton herself recently sought judicial confirmation of her own official status (see Physicians v. Clinton, 879 F. Suppl. 106 [1994]).
44. See ABC Breaking News, April 22, 1994, Transcript no. 143-1, p. 4:
45. See, for example, "Packwood's Statement and Excerpts from New Conference, " New York Times, September 7, 1995, A10.
46. See Jeff Gerth, "Top Arkansas Lawyer Helped Hillary Clinton Turn Big Profit, " New York Times, March 18, 1994, A20. Blair advanced the same argument from his end, saying that "he saw no conflict of interest; he said he had helped Mrs. Clinton as a close friend, not because of the position held by her husband."
47. See Roger Morris, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 235, 310, 451; James B. Stewart, Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 92, 417.
48. See Stephen Engelberg, "The Man Clinton Turns to in Times of Turmoil and Moments of Doubt, " New York Times, July 5, 1994, A10.
49. See Julie Kosterlitz, "Fighting for Ethics: The Senate Considers the Case against Ed Meese, " Common Cause Magazine (April 1985): 42.