Misapplied Principles

Political enthusiasts like to use principles to describe their positions. It simply sounds better to say you are following a principle than to say it is best for my political side. This like many of misapplied words degrades the state of political discourse in our society.

I am referring of course to the decision made by President Bush to commute the sentence of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. People are already using the reasoning to oppose it by saying lying under oath is always wrong. Conservatives including myself used the same reasoning to explain why President Clinton should have been impeached and convicted.

Liberals that herald principles to explain why this is wrong but President Clinton was not so much wrong. Likewise conservatives en masse think what happened to Libby was wrong from the beginning but the impeachment of President Clinton was completely correct. Liberals don't agree with impeachment and conservatives don't agree with the conviction of Libby. Who is correct?

Well in a word everyone. First of all we are all wrong as well. Using principles to explain a political position in this case is a weak case to make. First of all, the cases are not similar. Clinton clearly lied to avoid being held liable in a civil case. Libby was being investigated for something that was never a crime, the prosecutor knew the answer and whether Libby knew his statement was wrong is not clear. The overwhelming point I am making is that there is no principle at stake here, it is a debate of a political issue. While President Clinton did lie, did it rise to high crimes and misdemeanors. That has been debated to death and the winning answer to my mind is that reasonable people can disagree. Reasonable people cannot disagree about something that truly is a principle. Should Libby have been convicted? Once again that is truly up to debate. Principles are not debatable.

Political topics should be argued and argued passionately. Principles are more static (although never completely static. They can change over time). Lying is bad, Murder is evil, Honesty is to be practiced to the best of our ability. These are principles.

For my belief there is a perfectly good argument to be made to commute the sentence of Lewis Libby. There is even a case to be made to pardon him. Likewise we there is a reasonable case to be made either for or against impeaching Clinton. Right or wrong the voters did not buy the Republican case for it and punished them in public opinion and at the ballot box. Ultimately that is where these political issues are best decided.