Compassion Play - Governor George W. Bush

National Review, Feb 22, 1999 by John O'Sullivan

Message: I care more than you do.

When George the First visited New Hampshire at the start of the 1992 campaign, he had been told that his presidential reputation was unfortunately one of preppie unconcern for the plight of the recession- hit state. So he consulted the advice of his pollsters and speechwriters, and at his first public meeting he read out their joint prescription for improving his political image.

"Message," he said, "I care."

This was, to be sure, rather more condensed and brusque than his advisors had intended. It was a precis of what they wanted the president to say, rather than the full detailed heartfelt expression of his compassionate feelings towards the people of New Hampshire.

Yet for that very reason-because it is such a pure and distilled essence-it tells us a great deal about Mr. Bush's politics, that "compassionate conservatism" which, transmitted to his sons, we have been hearing so much about lately.

Compare Mr. Bush's words to another famous remark made by a preppie in high places on a visit to a distressed area. Only a few days before his abdication in 1936, King Edward VIII, now better known by his later title, the Duke of Windsor, spent a day in South Wales, then hit by the full force of the Depression. Visibly moved by the terrible poverty of the miners, more than half of whom were unemployed, he turned to an aide and said: "Something must be done."

The passive mood in that sentence has all the strangulated reticence of British royalty, which, at moments of sexual passion, presumably murmurs, "One does love you." But it was at least an expression of concern for other people, rather than an advertisement for the King's own decency. And it called for action, however vague, instead of leaving the impression that caring was itself a sort of policy.

In Mr. Bush's message, compassion was a self-interested political strategy, or it was at least heavily blended with self-interest-less compassion than compassioneering. Nor is the former president unique among politicians in having exploited compassion for his own ends (though it is to his credit that he did it so incompetently). Whatever its value as a private virtue, or even as a private motive inspiring public action as with Edward VIII, compassion is almost invariably vitiated when it enters politics. It is ineffective as a political tactic and deceitful as a public ideal.

Let us examine it first as a political tactic-the "compassionate conservatism" of George the Second of Texas. To begin with, there is something tinny and awkward about someone assuring us that he possesses some good quality. Imagine our reaction if Bill Clinton were to begin a discussion of his draft-dodging with the words: "Message: I'm brave." We would instantly sense that he was trying to compensate for a deficiency- whether a real deficiency or only the suspicion of one in the audience's mind. As Emerson put it: "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

For that reason, when the British Tories erected election posters proclaiming "Conservatives Care," they were drawing attention to a weakness. No one believes that Republicans are more compassionate than Democrats, or more likely to favor schemes of generous social provision, or more attuned to the feminine side of human nature. Their characteristic virtues are the masculine ones of patriotism, responsibility, self-reliance, and probity. People vote for them because they want to be protected against criminals and foreigners, taxed less, and governed both more lightly and more efficiently. Thus, one of the most successful Tory slogans was "Conservative Freedom Works," because it crystallized what the public saw as the party's strengths-especially after a period of socialist inefficiency.

So when George the Second advances the notion of a "compassionate conservatism," he is conceding that most conservatives are not known principally for their warmheartedness. But he is also excluding himself from the general indictment-and, again, people sense this. When Nancy Reagan heard George the First use the phrase "a kinder, gentler America," she asked perceptively, "Kinder and gentler than who, exactly?" These are the political tactics of the Pharisee: Lord, Lord, I thank thee that I am not as the publican . . . And though such an appeal may play in the general election, it may not be the wisest approach to the Republican primaries.

Compassion as a public ideal is a form of sentimentality. It draws attention to the fine feelings of the compassionate politician. Until recently politicians would stress what warmhearted fellows they were mainly in reference to the social benefits they were dispensing. Today, however, their sentimentality is purer. They cite their empathy alone as justification for their brand of politics. If someone is doing badly and they feel bad about it, then they must be good-and good for us.

But as Faking It, a valuable collection of essays edited by Digby Anderson on the rise of sentimentality, points out, such public figures do not even feel the emotions they exhibit. When Bill Clinton feels our pain, his real emotion is mild self-satisfaction at his own sensitivity. This is hardly surprising. No painful or expensive effort is personally expected from those who feel compassion stir in their breast. The inward grace of feeling, or the outward sign of tears, is all that is required. The important thing is that they "care."