c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In their second terms, presidents get found out.

In recent history, Dwight Eisenhower had Sherman Adams, Richard Nixon had Watergate, Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton had Monica, and now George W. Bush has spying, torture, abuses of executive power and, swirling around his presidency, corruption scandals already implicating key allies like Tom DeLay.

It’s a variant on “last day at camp,” when imminent departure makes fellow campers seem the best friends one will ever have. In the case of second-term presidents, whatever their party, imminent departure causes people to see what has been present all along and fellow politicians to stop wanting to protect.

Eisenhower had scant attention for domestic issues from the start. Nixon’s questionable ethics dated back to his California days. Iran-Contra began in Reagan’s first term. Infidelity issues marred Clinton’s character well before his second oath of office. And Bush’s secretive and cavalier attitudes were well known to Texans long before he came to Washington.

What if we had a strong appetite for truth-telling and truth-seeing all along? And not just in politics, but in all aspects of our lives?

Instead of imagining that this presidency will be different and then clinging to that imagining because reality is inconvenient and sordid, we would exercise caution and scrutiny from the start. Same with new relationships, new jobs, now homes.

We would grant respect, but not trust, certainly not the blind and total trust that Americans awarded George Bush after 9-11.

We would question everything, not just the final round of nominees. Tax policies, the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security deserved the same scrutiny that is being given now to Judge Samuel Alito.

We would stop seeing politics as a distant game of Republicans vs. Democrats, like Colts vs. Steelers, but as a fundamental working out of critical issues that impact our daily lives, like security, freedom, morality, justice. This isn’t a Super Bowl party; it is our nation’s future.

We would examine outcomes, not party labels. Have the actual consequences of recent policies worked to our benefit? Do we feel safer? Is the America that we value the America that is on display in Washington and overseas? That is for us to determine, not for politicians to sell.

We would examine quality of leadership, not affinity of appearance. We would look beyond religious labels and weigh actual commitment to ethics and values, actual humility, actual love of neighbor, actual mercy. Church-political gains matter less than ethical consequences for the larger community.

Why don’t we do that? Why don’t we see from the start? Two reasons, I think. First, like an abused child, we want desperately to have dad or mom be different this time. We invest considerable hope in our leaders and don’t want to see their reality.

Second, we think we profit from not seeing. Political leaders prefer spin to reality. Religious leaders, like business and labor leaders, tend toward narrow self-interest. Citizens find it easier to look away and to rely on brand loyalty.

As it is, power corrupts as thoroughly as ever, money runs the game and we start saying, “Next time.”

Better, I think, to remember President Andrew Jackson’s farewell words, “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty,” spoken in 1837 after himself being found out, being censured by the Senate, and fulfilling Thomas Jefferson’s dim assessment of him as “unfit.”

MO/JL END RNS

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org)

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