COMM 386: Civility

In class this afternoon, somebody mentioned an elementary school kid who voted for Barack Obama in a class election but who had nice things to say about John McCain, too.

I was reminded of that kid tonight when I read Peggy Noonan's endorsement of Obama, which was in The Wall Street Journal last week. "Something new is happening in America," she said. "It is the imminent arrival of a new liberal moment. History happens, it makes its turns, you hold on for dear life. Life moves." She's been leaning this way for several months.

But of McCain, she told a story. Noonan is at her best when she's telling stories. This one went like this:

... It was a night during the Republican Convention in September, and two former U.S. senators, who had served with Mr. McCain for a combined 16 years, were having drinks in a hotel dining room. I told them I collected stories of senators who’d been cursed out by John McCain, and they laughed and told me of times they’d been the target of his wrath on the Senate floor.

The talk turned to presidents they had known, and why they had wanted the job. This one wanted it as the last item on his résumé, that one wanted it out of an inflated sense of personal destiny. Is that why Mr. McCain wants it? “No”, said one, reflectively. “He wants to help the country.” The other added, with almost an air of wonder, “He wants to make America stronger, he really does.” And then they spoke, these two men who’d been bruised by him, of John McCain’s honest patriotism.

It's called civility or civic virtue. Webster's defines it as "civilized conduct; especially courtesy, politeness." And Wikipedia says it "a foundational principle of society and law." We need more of it, and it may not be too much to hope this year's election restores a measure of it to American political life.