A rare event happened in the political world last week: a sitting member of Congress admitted that he was wrong about something – that he had cast a vote the week before that he regrets.
This is remarkable. The shortcomings of our political system, our government and its players are well documented. We complain about it ceaselessly. But politics, it seems, usually means never having to say you’re sorry.
But then came U.S. Representative Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat – who, at 26, is the youngest member of Congress. The other day, Frost said that he was wrong to vote against a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on college campuses. His vote, Frost explained, came because Republicans added words in the resolution claiming falsely that universities didn’t punish those engaged in anti-Semitic activity. But, still, Frost said what he did was wrong; that he should have voted differently.
There’s good reason that this sort of thing is unusual: Americans are lousy at forgiveness. So the blame for the absence of remorse doesn’t rest entirely on the candidates; we all share it. We want our politicians to be as flawless as a powdered Fox News anchor, and just as cocksure of their faultlessness.
Never mind that well-worn phrase, “To err is human.” That’s only half of a line, you know, from an 18th century Alexander Pope poem – the second half being, “to forgive divine.” Accepting the first part as fact would require us to see our leaders as more than comic book heroes — you know, recognizing that they’re just as human and as flawed as we are. Embracing the second part of Pope’s epigram would require us to lay aside the anger that campaigns stoke with the goal of embedding enmity toward the other side. And, of course, feeling righteously ticked off is one of contemporary life’s guilty pleasures.
But we’ve grown accustomed to pig-headedness in our politicians – like the approach of George W. Bush in discussing his invasion of Iraq, now 20-plus years ago, which led to 400,000 Iraqi deaths and unsettled the regional power balance in Iran’s favor for perhaps generations to come. It was one of America’s greatest modern foreign policy blunders – and we are seeing the long tail of its impact right now in Gaza. George Bush has said there’s no need for him to apologize, because the war rid Iraq of a “homicidal dictator.” So maybe we should just feel relief that Bush didn’t recognize similar traits in Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin, who wouldn’t have been as easy to push out as Saddam Hussein was.
What would happen, though, if Bush were to apologize, even now, to the families of the 7,000 Americans who died in the Iraq conflict, and to the world still reeling from his bad judgment? Wouldn’t he gain a measure of respect in the view of history, at least, as the rare political leader who grew in awareness and confronted his failures?
Humility is good for the soul, and maybe for a place in posterity, but probably not for political advancement. Maybe that’s why you have to look pretty far back for good examples of the genre. Take Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who in 1077 realized, after he had been excommunicated, that it had been a mistake to make an enemy of Pope Gregory VII. So the emperor gathered up his family and crossed the Alps in the dead of winter to reach the pope’s castle in northern Italy. Barefoot and wearing sackcloth, Henry waited outside the castle for three days, begging for the pope’s forgiveness. Eventually, the pope relented. The emperor’s throne was saved.
Of course, the emperor didn’t have to contend with a grouchy electorate, which is more judgmental than a prelate, nor a communication ecosystem filled with commentators who pose petty criticism as a model of toughness. None of the foes of Henry IV wrote snarky tweets to build their online profile.
So hand-in-hand with the more open government we want, we might need to commit to being a more open-minded citizenry. In matters of policy, we should honor politicians who grow in their jobs, and expect that they will make mistakes. When they do, we ought to welcome their admission of that fact. If their errors are intolerable, we can elect somebody else. Unlike Henry IV, our leaders shouldn’t expect lifetime tenure.
After all, mental health professionals tell us that forgiving misdeeds has positive health benefits, even to the point of lowering blood pressure among heart patients. Imagine how much healthier society might be if we cut officials some slack, not so much for failures of character as for mistakes of policy.
No, we’re not expecting an appeal for our forgiveness from a barefoot senator in sackcloth. But an apology here and there might go a long way toward rebuilding some confidence that a politician is being honest with us — and a willingness to welcome an apology might suggest we’re becoming a healthier society, too.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.