Tom Cotton is a different kind of candidate in this season of mushy politicians who say different things to different people in different places (like Arkansas and Washington, D.C.), and hope it'll all hold together long enough for them to win another term--so they can continue to fade into the annals of mediocrity in a secure berth. Congress, like any bureaucracy public or corporate, is full of such time-servers whose principal function is to warm a seat till they're ready to collect their generous pensions. It's a most comfortable arrangement for all concerned--except maybe the people of the United States, who deserve something more in their leaders. Like vision, principle and courage.
This year's race for the U.S. Senate in Arkansas offers a clear choice: a choice between mediocrity (or maybe less) and a quality that may not be easy to define, but one that time after crucial time in American history has been embodied by great leaders who appeared just when they were most needed. The world's last best hope, Mr. Lincoln called this country, and if it is to remain so, the quality we're talking about must shine again.
And what is that quality? Whatever it's called, it's something people have recognized in Tom Cotton at every stage of his coming of age. Just as Richard Arnold was recognized at Yale, and then at Harvard Law, long before he became a great jurist, some say the greatest never to have sat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Call that quality a potential for greatness, a belief in principle even when principle isn't easy to uphold. It's not just an ability to cut through all the cant of politics but a demonstrated talent for it.
John F. Kennedy alluded to that quality in the title of a book he wrote about great senators: Profiles in Courage. "This is a book," Senator and later President Kennedy explained, "about that most admirable of human virtues--courage." It may also be the most indispensable of virtues, for without it, all the others don't mean much. Any more than even the greatest of principles don't mean much if we lack the courage to practice them. To quote Senator Kennedy's book:
"The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people--faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but will also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment--faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor and ultimately recognize right. . . . For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve."
What kind of leader will we the people of Arkansas demand in this election for the U.S. Senate--one who courts the bubble popularity, whose idea of politics is to go along to get along, who by experience means just doing the same thing year in and year out, and confuses mere seniority with high service? The kind of politician who invariably does the safe thing rather than the right thing--until he finally may not even see the difference. The kind of "leader" who can't recognize even an outstanding military career as very relevant to service in high office. Someone like the current senior senator from Arkansas.
Yes, that kind of politician will pay lip service to the sacrifices veterans have made. "I will never criticize anyone for service to our country and I say thank you for that," Mark Pryor told an interviewer not too long ago, when this campaign for the Senate was just warming up. End of routine thank-you. ("Thank you for your service.") Except that NBC's Kasie Hunt didn't end the interview at that point. Instead she asked the senator a follow-up question about the relevance of military to political service: "But you don't see it as a qualification?" That's when the senator went right over the cliff: "Uh, no," he answered, smiling and laughing. "There's a lot of people in this Senate that didn't serve in the military. In the Senate we have all kinds of different backgrounds . . . ."
Mark Pryor doesn't get it, does he? It's not the senators' different backgrounds that once made the Senate of the United States the world's greatest deliberative body but the greatness, the grace under pressure, the courage that great senators brought to that chamber. It's not membership in the Senate that makes a leader great, but the greatness of its members who make the Senate great.
Who wants a Senate that is only representative of all kinds of different backgrounds, that is, of all of us? We certainly don't. We want a U.S. Senate that is better than most of us, and certainly better than we are--and we don't propose to settle for any lesser standard.
Once there were giants on the earth, and, yes, in the U.S. Senate--Webster and Clay and, yes, even John C. Calhoun. That old wraith may have represented a clear and present danger to the Union and the very idea on which this Republic was founded--that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Yet he defended his principles, however dubious, with a coherence and courage that even now inspire admiration despite ourselves.
For that matter, the House of Representatives has had its greats, too, as when John Quincy Adams stepped down from the presidency only to step up to the House of Representatives and become the great enemy of the Slave Power year after year. Even when he was accused of holding up congressional business and making a spectacle of himself--just as Tom Cotton was when he voted against the farm-and-food-stamp bill, a combination that may be the outstanding example, year after year, of political cynicism in Washington. In political parlance, it's called log-rolling: "You vote for my special interest's raid on the U.S. Treasury, and I'll vote for yours." The only people left out of this cozy arrangement are the taxpayers and citizens of this country. And the only thing ignored is the national interest.
The vote on that bill was a perfect example of idealism vs. politics as usual. For the farm-and-food-stamps bill combined, as it always does, a multitude of subsidies for a vast special interest with idealistic talk about helping the needy. Mark Pryor was all for it, of course, as he has been for expedience over principle throughout his political career. Whether he was befriending payday lenders as the state's attorney general--hey, they had all those campaign contributions to make--or running on nothing but the Democratic brand, as he is this year. And even that brand ain't what it used to be in these latitudes.
And yet Mark Pryor, son of a popular senator, which may be his chief distinction in state politics, accuses his opponent of a "sense of entitlement." Has anyone who has ever spoken to Tom Cotton about his politics, or his career civil and military, legal and academic, ever come away with the impression that he has a "sense of entitlement"? Any fair-minded person, that is, as opposed to some political operative for the other political party. Please. This is Tom Cotton of Yell County, Ark., we're talking about--Mattie Ross country.
We endorse Tom Cotton today with the confidence that he would make not just a good senator but maybe, we dare hope, a great one. It's time again, as in Winthrop Rockefeller's day, for Arkansas to reach for excellence. And choose a profile in courage.
Editorial on 10/26/2014