Getting With the Program

For more than two centuries, millions of Jews have tried to fit into the American mainstream by assimilating. Yet, after all that effort, the first Jew to be named to a major presidential ticket turns out to be Orthodox. Not only that, the Democratic Party leaders who embraced Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman last week made it perfectly clear that he was chosen in part because of his orthodox beliefs. Warren Christopher, who managed the selection process for Vice President Al Gore, called Lieberman “a symbol of rectitude” and Lieberman’s yarmulke is the symbol of that symbol. Democratic officials have repeated the stories of how Lieberman walks home from work on Friday nights so he won’t violate the Sabbath. Gore gave ABC News a line-by-line recitation of the prayer he said with Lieberman during their phone call. Nor have the two candidates stinted when it comes to quoting scripture over the past few days. Lieberman mentioned God 12 times in their first joint appearance, which has to be some kind of record for a Democratic pol.

That’s the great thing about elections: You never know beforehand which issues are going to dominate a race. But over the past two weeks it’s become clear that this campaign is going to be steeped in religion and fought out over which party can ennoble the national character. When Texas Gov. George W. Bush says Jesus is his most important political philosopher, and when Gore picks an orthodox believer as his running mate, they are both offering faith as an antidote to scandal, trash culture and the corruptions of affluence.

And yet, while both campaigns preach the dignity of the pulpit, they do it while using the language of the TV studio. They are enmeshed in the cultural argot they say they are trying to rise above. The campaigns are running sentimental conventions in order to urge us to rise above self-indulgent sentimentality. The candidates call on us to renounce selfishness and serve causes larger than ourselves, and yet, like all political campaigns these days, their speeches are stuffed with self-worship.

In other words, this whole campaign is beginning to look like an unsuccessful meeting of Narcissists Anonymous: Self-promoting leaders trying to promote themselves by summoning the armies of selflessness.

This isn’t rank hypocrisy. This is an accurate reflection of where the country is now, and especially where the baby boomer center of gravity is now. The boomers are notoriously narcissistic, yet trying to rise above narcissism. This is a fat and happy country that fears it is getting too fat and happy. This is a country with nice kitchens and nice lawns, that somehow senses it should be paying attention to more important things. In short, many Americans are absorbed by the anxiety that they might be too self-absorbed.

Look at how the tortured boomer soul was revealed at Bush’s convention. On the one hand, Bush forcefully and sincerely made the case that the boomers have been lulled by peace and prosperity and have, so far, squandered their chance to contribute to their country’s greatness. He started by recalling the heroism of the World War II generation, the “generation of Americans who stormed the beaches, liberated concentration camps and delivered us from evil.” That was the generation from which much was asked, he suggested. But then Bush pivoted and pointed out that the boomer generation is the generation to which much was given. “This generation,” he said, “was given the gift of the best education in American history.”

“Our current president embodied the potential of a generation,” he continued. “So many talents. So much charm. Such great skill. But, in the end, to what end?” President Bill Clinton has squandered his gifts, Bush answered. All that potential was directed toward selfish ends.

Bush then called on the country to devote itself to service to others. America’s greatness, he said in Philadelphia, was not based on money or military might “but in small unnumbered acts of caring and courage and self-denial.” Government should encourage those acts. The convention was chock-a-block with uplifting stories of charity and caring.

But somehow the self-denial was missing. On the contrary, the whole thing was a mammoth testimonial to Bush’s good heart. The Republican Party as an entity was scarcely mentioned. The congressional Republicans were largely ignored. The convention was about Bush’s wonderful self--four days of celebration.

The Democratic campaign has a similar tension. Lieberman’s life is dedicated to Jewish law, which is eternal and transcendent. He has crusaded against sleaze and morally corrosive popular culture.

Lieberman showed his sincere concern about public morality in the most important speech of his life, the speech that stands as precursor to his selection as Gore’s running mate. On Sept. 8, 1998, amid the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, Lieberman addressed his Senate colleagues: “I have come to this floor many times in the past to speak with my colleagues about my concerns, which are widely held in this chamber and throughout the nation, that our society’s standards are sinking, that our common moral code is deteriorating, and that our public life is coarsening.”

Lieberman then went on to point out that the president is “the one-man distillation of the American people” and that Clinton had contributed to America’s moral deterioration and fed popular cynicism about public service.

Lieberman offers a better alternative: a life devoted to God and public service. He published a book this year titled “In Praise of Public Life,” which is a defense of politics as a noble calling. Lieberman says he was first inspired by John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ask not” speech. And for all the muck of politics, Lieberman still believes in political action as a cause greater than self-interest.

Yet, when Gore appeared up on stage with Lieberman at their first joint appearance in Nashville, the dominant message was self-worship. Gore gave a speech extolling the virtues of the Gore-Lieberman partnership. Then Lieberman gushed a stream of flattery that would have embarrassed a non-politician. It was a paean to Massa WASP for elevating a Jewish boy to his own lofty heights. It made Gore seem like one of those self-congratulatory white benefactors from the days of radical chic. Lieberman waxed on about Gore’s greatness: “He has never, never wavered in his responsibilities as a father, as a husband and, yes, as a servant of God Almighty.” If Gore has indeed never, never wavered, he’s not just a good candidate for president, he’s the Messiah.

It’s not only the language of aggrandizement that drowns out the message, is the whole Oprah ethos. Gore said that one the reason he chose Lieberman was because Lieberman has a good “comfort level.” They feel good together. That’s the language of the encounter group. Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln lauding Andrew Johnson because they had a achieved a nice comfort level?

When Gore met with his team of advisors to make the final running-mate decision, it was Christopher, according to published reports, who made the climatic pitch. Christopher told Gore: “This choice says everything about you--what’s in your heart, what’s in your soul and what’s in your mind.” It’s hard to know which is more embarrassing: that Christopher would talk that way; that Gore would respond to such talk; or that aides would leak that comment, thinking it reflected well on their candidate.

Again, this doesn’t mean that the four candidates are rank hypocrites. They’re not. It means that our entire politics and our entire popular culture is steeped in the language and mode of narcissism, and even when you desperately want to rise above narcissism, it is hard when that is your mother tongue.

Once presidential candidates stayed at home and were supposed to abstain from boasting, because it demeaned their dignity. Those were the days when there was a structure of etiquette and custom designed to promote self-denial and punish self-aggrandizement. But those days are long gone, and now, whether you wear a yarmulke or not, all must pay homage to the holy self.