Thursday 30 December 2010

Joe Miller picks pathetic path

Despite his honorable Army service, Joe Miller has decided to embody the least admirable character in the naval tradition.

Miller’s post-election crusade marks him as a true “sea lawyer” — the type of sailor who uses a captious, pedantic insistence on the letter of the law to serve only himself.

The current political tragedy recalls the fall of former state Sen. Ben Stevens, who squandered his chance to inherit the mantle of his father, Alaskan of the Century Ted Stevens.

Thanks to the tea party Zeitgeist and his own energy and charisma, Miller earned a loyal following and a shot at the U.S. Senate. And he lost.

At that point he faced a choice about how to use his hard-won prominence and leadership potential. He could have launched a real political career, going back to the trenches to advance the issues he campaigned on, thus building himself a broader base of support in his own party.

Instead, he looked down from the mountain and decided the most urgent use of his energy, charisma, time and money was in service of personal pique.

Miller says his motivation is preservation of the integrity of Alaska elections. If that is so, why didn’t he denounce the people who tried to disrupt Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign by filing phony candidate papers under names designed to confuse voters choosing the write-in option?

Has Miller become an Alaskan Laurent Gbagbo? The president of Ivory Coast lost a re-election bid in November, but had himself sworn in for another term anyway. The psychology seems similar: Gbagbo claims election fraud, unwilling to acknowledge he could have lost fairly. He has chosen to impugn election monitors without evidence and invite civil war rather than man up to a schellacking.

No politician lists ego and personal ambition as platform planks. Ambitious people naturally use the language of the society and system they work in. On his way up to the Politburo, Vladimir Putin was content to spout the ideals of Communism. As president and prime minister in post-Soviet Russia, he talks as easily about his liberal democratic values while heading a regime as dictatorial as its Soviet and tsarist predecessors.

Yet we cannot fault politicians just for ambition, and it doesn’t necessarily stop them from being good and honest. As Al Gore candidly admitted while running for president, nobody seeks high office without a larger-than-normal share of ambition in their character.

Some exceptional leaders pay a heavy price for putting belief above opportunism. We cannot ask every office seeker to meet the standard of Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi or Vaclav Havel. That level of ideological integrity and heroism is not for most of us, or even most of our leaders. In this era, the willingness to serve in public office at all deserves admiration and a deep reservoir of benefit of the doubt with respect to motive.

Alas, Miller falls short even of Sarah Palin’s standard of service while out of office. Palin at least advocates an agenda based on a form of principles while advancing her own power and wealth.

Of course, sometimes sea lawyers are right, at least as far as the letter of the law goes.

But the law is only one leg of a tripod test. In legal matters we have to answer three questions: What are the facts? What is the law? What is just?

Even if Miller achieves the vindication of exposing flaws in Alaska’s election laws, his challenge fails the test of the other two questions. The evidence says the election results were fair and accurate. And throwing out the results would not serve justice.

Here it is in terms of the old Latin legal saws, “cui bono” (who benefits?) and “cui malo” (who is harmed?): Success of Miller’s election challenge quest could benefit only Miller; it would harm the plurality of voters whose intent nobody seriously questions.

The aspects of American politics most admired around the world are honest elections and the peaceful transition of power.
These are worth defending, but is that what Joe Miller would be doing if he takes his case farther?

Onboard the ship, sea lawyers lose the respect of officers and crew, ending up friendless and ineffectual. Redemption lies in picking up a mop and swabbing the deck.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem interested in Zeitgeist. You write for the daily mirror. Do you blog about dragger bycatch?

Neofelis Borealis said...

I'm open to suggestions, but there are better qualified people for to opinionize on bycatch.