WHO IS THE "REAL" LOSER BY THE MENSCH STANDARD?

The freaky roller coaster of political favor and disfavor is made all the freakier when we impose on it an appraisal of “real” winners and losers in terms of longer-range prognoses: Which candidates, even in defeat, have craftily postured themselves for 2008 and beyond? Which candidates have irreparably shot themselves in the foot?

We who have attained cranky middle age delude ourselves into believing that once upon a time the criteria of “real” winners and losers were determined by the yardstick of philosophical commitment and statesmanship. Whatever the case, our current measure of the “real” loser is the display of public stupidity: Michael Dukakis playing make-believe tank commander, the zaftig Donna Rice cuddling with Gary Hart on the Good Ship Monkeyshines, and most recently, Howard Dean’s infantile rants and cheerleading. Shall we also include the silly grandstanding of our flight-suit clad president’s loopdloop aircraft-carrier landing?

Thus, by the measure of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stupidity, the “real” loser of this primary season is Al Gore, as evidenced by his misplaced political spotlight-grab and that goofy smile as he stiffly embraced Howard Dean. How many volumes could be written about the crass, foolish opportunism of a vice-president who almost became our president? How could a man who nearly attained the mantle of international leadership embrace a flash-in-the-pan candidate when anyone with any sense already suspected that Dean’s vaunted popularity was cresting too early to be of lasting value? Which other candidate would now have the most remote desire for Gore’s smarmy endorsement as second best? By the standard of public stupidity, Al Gore has forever discredited himself from any pretensions of prudent, honorable national leadership.

Gore’s status as “real” loser, though, derives even more from a flaw well beyond public stupidity: Al Gore is not a mensch. For the Yiddishly-challenged, a mensch is an honorable person. Even if in choosing to endorse a candidate prematurely, had Gore been a mensch, he would have supported Joe Lieberman. Yes, part of the issue is a betrayal of loyalty, even a breach of trust, to his former running mate, a man he deemed worthy of being a single heartbeat from the presidency.

More grievously, Gore failed as a mensch by his refusal to support the only candidate most consistently identified with integrity by his senatorial colleagues and even the cynical Limbaugh and O’Reilly. A real mensch would have endorsed a real mensch, not a rude, bellicose come-lately who is subject to unpredictable public displays of bipolarity.

Yes, Gore knew as we all did that Lieberman was unelectable. None of that, particularly early in the campaign, should have deterred Gore from the honor and decency befitting a true statesman, not an opportunistic hack. It could have become his singular moment for underscoring integrity as an issue in the campaign that should outshine opportunism and pandering for votes. Then, upon Lieberman’s anticipated withdrawal, Gore’s support of another candidate would likely have had at least some modicum of credibility, not the buffoonery that it now would engender.

One would hope that identifying Al Gore as the “real” loser over the mensch issue might become a cautionary tale, one of prizing integrity not only above stupidity, but above the disreputable machinations that ordain a candidate as “electable.” That is not likely to happen any time soon. Be that as it may, it should not deter anyone from being a mensch and supporting a mensch even if s/he does not place first in the race. Perhaps one day we will realize that it is not the mensch, but the race, that needs fixing.