Mr. Sununu Goes to Washington
O'ROURKE, P.J.
Mr. Sununu Goes to Washington The political philosophy of an actual politician BY P.J. O’ROURKE American political methodology is an ontological construct. No, I don’t know what I’m...
...There’s a lack of self-awareness...
...Your shower faucets are a short control loop...
...Does Senator Sununu fi nd his principles compromised by the American Idol stagecraft of practical politics and its Paula Abdul logic...
...A principled choice sounds . . .” He hesitated, seeking the right comparison, then sensibly gave up, “more principled...
...But these values don’t refl ect a philosophy...
...That’s a lousy analogy considering how Senator Sununu’s philosophy is based on the idea that Americans are anything but antisocial...
...The dome isn’t shaky...
...Applying the philosophy isn’t diffi cult,” he said...
...As for our side, conservatism is a gut reaction for most of us, and a done deal for the rest...
...Good enough for this reporter...
...We ascended to the dome’s apex and stood outside, under the feet of the heroic scale allegorical fi gure Freedom—an apt place to contemplate consent of the governed...
...Blah...
...It’s important for politicians to understand,” Senator Sununu said, “that the Founders’ writings refl ect that point of view...
...When the New Hampshire House seat came open [in 1996], I looked at the other people who’d announced...
...The biggest trouble with the Patriot Act was that the earliest version contained provisions for unlimited detention of suspects...
...Reform is diffi cult...
...it’s a branch of moral philosophy...
...There are no thought crimes, no philosophical felonies, among a free people...
...Governments have evolved to provide greater freedom, to reduce the power of monarchies, to reduce absolute power...
...It comes from the natural tendency of public offi cials to show that they’ve done something...
...Too many politicians,” the senator said, “fail to realize that voters are intelligent enough to understand that they can’t agree with you about everything...
...How does anyone—who’s not a Clinton or a creature from the Clinton Lagoon—endure the business of running for offi ce...
...These are weighty items—the dome, the government, political philosophy...
...The easy way to do this is new spending, set-asides, new rules, new regulations...
...When, indeed, governments have evolved at all...
...You go back downstairs, etc...
...Thank goodness...
...Was he suspicious of himself...
...And he did so without the huffi ng and puffi ng that beset his guest...
...The argument was over what government mechanism would ensure common good and guarantee freedom...
...She was a school teacher...
...I don’t think it’s tough to make a principled choice...
...Senator Sununu’s political philosophy is consensual government of the short control loop kind...
...Applying the principles isn’t diffi cult...
...Darwin, if he’d studied Russia instead of Galapagos fi nches, would have come up with the theory of “survival of the filthiest...
...So who’s more likely to raise your taxes...
...Actually, I was pretty sure I knew where, and never mind that like any intelligent person he didn’t major in philosophy...
...We were between them, scampering through the hemispherical iron trusses that were bolted together nearly a century and a half ago...
...It had to be reauthorized in ’05...
...Was he ‘too simplistic...
...I was willing to bet that Senator Sununu knows that if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, the government will tax the timber industry and subsidize the purchase of Miracle Ears...
...Give the Guant?namo detainees access to federal courts to appeal the determination...
...What Senator Sununu said instead was, “A responsibility that citizens share is to educate themselves before they cast a vote...
...I knew what he meant because, some months before, I’d discussed the same subject with his father, a former governor of New Hampshire and Bush 41’s White House chief of staff, John Sununu...
...If your federal taxes go up,” the governor said, “doing something about it is a protracted process...
...Concerning the humbler aspects of politics, I asked the senator about coping with its six-Rotary-lunches-in-one-day routines...
...Guant?namo is a political, diplomatic, and moral liability...
...No, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but it’s true anyway...
...What people want is someone who’s thoughtful, direct, and able to explain...
...Another of the senator’s examples was “local governance to the greatest extent possible...
...People in Washington...
...Not vice-versa...
...Most of the members of Congress can’t even be bothered to go through the process...
...We were talking about the limitations of government not the limitations of humans, which is another branch of moral philosophy entirely...
...Or people next door...
...His reputation is . . . well, as one of his fellow senators said to me, “Don’t let anything happen to this boy in the New Hampshire election, otherwise we’ll have to argue about who’s the smartest person in the Senate...
...You can get inside the Capitol dome and go all the way to the top...
...I believe government should be fair and just.’ ‘I believe government should represent both the strong and the weak in America.’ They’re describing characteristics of what they’d like the government to be...
...But it’s not something I have written down on an index card...
...Actually, I apologize again...
...You wrap yourself in a towel, go down two fl ights of stairs dripping water all over the house, go back upstairs...
...You make sure, if you’re giving powers to law enforcement, they’re balanced with powers for civil liberties...
...But you see what I’m getting at...
...O’Rourke is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...I asked Senator Sununu if there were many politicians in Washington with a political philosophy...
...It’s too cold...
...Under no circumstances should we be allowed to detain people indefi nitely...
...More often, all reasoning seems absent—No Child Left Behind...
...But he added, “A responsibility does not mean it’s a prerequisite...
...There we began a climb of 288 feet, fi rst up spiral steps to the base of the dome where we stared down into the rotunda 180 feet below and up at Constantino Brumidi’s Apotheosis of Washington...
...It’s more passionate, more engaged...
...I like to think so,” he replied...
...You turn on the cold faucet, the shower is cold...
...Reagan reveled in explaining...
...Alternatives have to be carefully examined...
...It was as if I’d asked a policeman, “Given the responsibilities and restraints of your position as a law offi cer, what do you believe that criminals should do...
...The problem on the left is, now that Karl Marx has forsaken them, they have no philosophy...
...Enlightened self-interest...
...That’s where I begin,” he said, “with a fi rm belief that people in the United States are best served by limited and effective government...
...As a gut reaction conservative myself, I take the senator’s point...
...Shaheen herself is a veteran of the only institution capable of making our lives more miserable than the law courts...
...We went through a little door and along a catwalk to a zigzagging iron staircase...
...I asked the senator, “What does this philosophy require from citizens...
...Also,” he said, “it takes a certain humility to realize that all the committee appointments and bill mark-ups and leadership posts that we get so excited about here in Washington don’t matter to the public...
...Guant?namo, on the other hand—even if everything you’re doing is legally approved, something can still be implemented in a way that’s counterproductive to our moral perspective...
...He looked stumped...
...But all I can say for the soundness of the other two things is, “Senator John Sununu...
...Love of country...
...I wonder if the tourists know just how hot the mythological babes are who surround the Father of Our Country and hover over our commitment to personal freedom—4,664 square feet of rosy bosom and curvaceous hip...
...He’s a very fi t senator...
...We took the little train that runs from the basement of Russell to the basement of the Capitol building...
...Too often members of Congress lose sight of how they’re viewed by the public...
...In fact, however, Senator Sununu could write his political philosophy on a small piece of paper: “I have a deepseated belief that America is unique, strong, great because of a commitment to personal freedom—in our economic system and our politics...
...The Patriot Act, for instance...
...We must be right and seem to be right...
...Blah...
...Governor Sununu explained the importance of the “short control loop...
...Given the consent of the governed, political philosophy is all about the consent...
...For an answer the senator returned to the authors of our system...
...The view seems to command the world...
...The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance...
...Italics added for the sake of the multitudes in our government’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches who need to fi ll out that index card and keep it with them at all times...
...From Jefferson to Hamilton, freedom was the special ingredient in human prospects, moral prospects, political prospects...
...I went to see Senator Sununu at his offi ce in the Russell Building and said that I assumed he had a political philosophy...
...Some of the laws we had were outdated...
...Solid foundations are obviously a must...
...I’m intrigued by the notion that most of our country’s founders were suspicious of anyone who wanted to hold public offi ce, e.g., Aaron Burr...
...That’s a long control loop...
...There are really two Capitol domes, one inside and one outside...
...They aren’t describing principles of organizing a government...
...In most parts of the world there never has been an appreciation for that perspective...
...The senator said that where government goes astray is with the “institutional momentum that often drives things in a wrong direction...
...The moral philosophy of American politics can be explained briefl y and clearly, and, the Constitution being written, it has been...
...They regarded it as an obligation, not an aspiration...
...Inclusiveness...
...What the governed do is their own business, except in the specifi c areas of life where the governed have agreed to have government...
...He disparaged the idea that there’s anything politically hazardous about moral clarity...
...I don’t thing it’s tough to explain a principled choice...
...Tolerance...
...You turn on the hot faucet, the shower is hot...
...You fi ddle with both faucets, and you take a shower...
...The governor is himself an engineer and no mean political philosopher...
...The provision was dropped, and we put a sunset on the whole Patriot Act...
...Senator Sununu wants a government mechanism without the innumerable moving parts that collect goo and sludge: “Just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean it should be a law—let alone a federal law...
...I felt stupid for asking and heartened by the senator’s pause...
...Legislators have to think hard about unintended consequences...
...You turn the water on, climb the steps and get in the shower...
...Where is there a philosopher in Washington...
...We are a free people who consented to be governed...
...And if the multitudes are confused by “Not vice-versa” they may substitute, We aren’t a government that consents to people being free...
...Or did he feel obligated...
...There was no argument about whether we were free people...
...Rather, they refl ect a personal goal...
...Political “science”— like that puppy from the same litter, the dismal science of economics—is not science...
...But Senator Sununu was arguing mechanical engineering not ratiocination...
...Incidentally Senator Sununu’s opponent in this fall’s race, former governor Jean Shaheen, is not a trial lawyer—her husband is...
...Now imagine your second-story bathroom has its shower faucets in the basement...
...If your local property taxes go up, you walk over to the town tax collector’s house and give him a piece of your mind...
...The Founders retained that suspicion even after they themselves held offi ce...
...Taxes,” Senator Sununu said, “are a confi scation of economic power...
...Sometimes there’s a reason for that—the Civil War...
...There are many,” he said, “that would make the argument that they have a core set of values...
...He was as deep and thoughtful as any of his contemporaries...
...Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they’re blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue...
...Blah...
...It was a tool to fi nd and prosecute criminals...
...I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t run, New Hampshire would be represented by another trial lawyer...
...Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance...
...It resonates with people...
...Yet try talking moral philosophy with a politician...
...There are so many easy answers to that question...
...Citizens shouldn’t break the law if they can help it, but that hardly merits saying...
...Then Senator Sununu let me in on a secret known only to a few select Washington insiders...
...Senator Sununu gave, as an example, Congressman Don Young (Republican of Alaska) and his 2005 transportation bill setaside for a $200 million bridge linking Ketchikan (population 7,845) with its airport (six fl ights a day...
...Not only does this make government more responsive to us consenters but it also minimizes government’s assumptions about the amount of stuff we’ve consented to...
...Senator John Sununu (Republican of New Hampshire) earned a BS and an MA in mechanical engineering from MIT, an MBA from Harvard, and a living as a design engineer and manufacturing consultant...
...It’s too hot...
...He gave the example of low taxes, but from a philosophical angle—low taxes respect the prerogatives of free people...
...And sometimes the United States government seems to try to do the same...
...The senator could, of course, explain the structure’s design, its stresses, its load-bearing capacity...
Vol. 13 • June 2008 • No. 38
