The Time of Our Lives

by Tom Brokaw

  The Great Recession and all of its political and economic consequences; the rise of China and India; the upheaval in the Middle East; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the massively destructive earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan; the environmental calamity of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; the economic disarray in the European Union; the lawlessness throughout Mexico, our southern neighbor—all represent a confluence of problems that, taken together, are unparalleled in the American experience in the post–World War II era.

  We’ve experienced grave crises before but never so many all at once representing such a wide range of disastrous possibilities: the new world DIS-order.

  Add to that the polarization in the political and governmental institutions in Washington, D.C., and we have a historic set of challenges that demand attention and action that go well beyond a testy exchange on cable television or a food fight in the blogosphere.

  Those atrophied muscles of the national character that the president mentioned in Dresden demand our attention. Can they be developed so that they provide the strength to carry us through this treacherous passage? Do we have the will to restore a sense of national purpose that unites us rather than divides us? Shouldn’t we take a realistic inventory of our strengths, needs, objectives, and challenges as we head into a new century in a changed world?

  None of us has all the answers, but so many of the problems are self-evident that we should begin by first addressing those that threaten our core vaues: political pluralism, broad-based economic opportunity, national security secured by means other than the barrel of a gun, cultural and religious tolerance.

  The first step: Establish a climate for listening as well as for shouting.

  What better time than now, when we’ve been through the searing, frightening experience of a historic economic setback? What better time than now, when our principal political, economic, and cultural competitors are expanding at a breathtaking pace, especially in educating their young for the demands of a new age.

  As time goes by, we’ll have fewer ideal opportunities to reignite the American Dream and face the territory ahead with a renewed sense of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re determined to go.

  The lessons of just the past decade are self-evident. The big picture for American primary and secondary education was a canvas of discordant colors and composition. Republicans and Democrats alike were enablers in the wave of easy credit, big government spending on the pet projects of congressional power players, and the launch of two wars simultaneously with no realistic means of financing them beyond the much-too-optimistic scenarios for success.

  The plethora of historic challenges before us didn’t start with the inauguration of President Obama, and those challenges will not end with the next election cycle, whoever is the victor.

  We have miles to go before we sleep, as Robert Frost reminded us.

  We can learn from the past as we grapple with the present and work to renew and fulfill America’s promise.

  CHAPTER 2

  One Nation, Indivisible

  FACT: It’s now accepted that independent voters make up about 30 percent of the American electorate, and with every new election they’re proving to be a powerful swing vote. In 2008, President Obama won in large part because he had an 8 percent margin among independent voters; by the midterm elections of 2010, independents favored Republicans by 18 percent.

  QUESTION: When was the last time you voted a straight party line?

  That great American philosopher P. J. O’Rourke, a former hippie, now a New Hampshire country squire, sums up the self-righteous nature of the two major American political parties well when he says, “Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove crabgrass from your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”

  O’Rourke has also observed that “America wasn’t founded so we could all be better; America was founded so we could all be anything we damn well pleased.”

  THE PRESENT

  In a nation of so many voices, all of them, it seems, with access to some kind of megaphone, whether it’s call-in radio talk shows, Internet blogs, or rallies on the National Mall or in a town square, the American political character is to some degree in flux. In a 2010 Gallup poll to determine the ideological makeup of the country, people identifying themselves as liberals were outnumbered by those who call themselves conservatives by a two-to-one margin, but moderates were within five percentage points of the conservative bloc.

  The 2010 numbers were a big gain for conservatives, who trailed moderates in the last term of President George W. Bush. The percentage of Americans identifying themselves as conservative was the highest in Gallup’s polling history. Much of that, no doubt, was a result of the stratospheric levels of federal debt piled up, beginning with the Bush years and accelerating in the first half of the Obama term, twinned with the persistently high levels of unemployment and the anxiety over the new national health care plan.

  The upswing in the conservative numbers paid off for the Republican Party in the midterm elections, obviously, and GOP leaders once again began speeches with the phrase “The American people have spoken.” Just two years earlier, Democratic Party leaders were using the same phrase, and four years before that President Bush was invoking the American people in his speeches.

  Six months after the Gallup poll, an NBC survey found that 79 percent of the respondents thought the country was too divided politically. That’s a very big number, but it didn’t surprise me, because everywhere I go, whatever the ideological or cultural makeup of the audience, that is the overwhelming sentiment of the audience when the talk turns to politics.

  For me there was no more poignant demonstration of the frustration over the cold war among partisans in Washington than an encounter I had on Capitol Hill. Two bright young men approached me after a reception for the International Rescue Committee, a renowned refugee organization with bipartisan support. They were dressed in the standard uniform of Capitol Hill aides: serious blue suits, white button-down shirts, and red ties. One said, “Mr. Brokaw, we want to ask you about the old days here in Washington.” Given their youth, I was afraid by “the old days” they meant the first Clinton term, but I volunteered to help however I could.

  They went on, as one gestured to the other, “We’re best friends even though he’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican. We go into Georgetown, drink beer, and argue politics and at the end of the night we’re still friends.

  “But his boss is a Democratic congressman and mine is a Republican and they won’t talk to each other. It’s really frustrating. Was it always this way?”

  I explained that no, it wasn’t. When I worked in Washington at the height of the Watergate scandal, an acrimonious time, Meredith and I would often find ourselves at dinner parties with prominent Republicans and Democrats, sharing a drink and stories from some dustup on the Hill. Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, I told them, two World War II veterans representing opposite ends of the political spectrum, are close friends and often worked with each other on fighting global hunger.

  If anything, the partisan cold war in Washington has gotten worse since that chance encounter with members of a younger generation determined to serve but frustrated by the consequences of the fundamental incivility that courses through Washington these days.

  My friend Bob Schieffer, host of the highly regarded Sunday morning public affairs program Face the Nation, has been in Washington more than forty years and he says it’s never been worse. He cites a prime example of the juvenile behavior that takes place on too many Sunday mornings when he tells of one show in which he had one Republican guest and one Democratic.

  The Sunday shows all have what is called a “green room,” where the guests and journalists gather for coffee, makeup, and any last-minute instructions. Bob told me, incredulously, “We had a call from the staff of one of the men, a senior leade
r of the Senate, requesting separate rooms so the guests wouldn’t have to be together. I said, ‘No. We’re not changing our behavior just to suit theirs.’ ”

  House Speaker John Boehner was asked on NBC’s Meet the Press to review a video of some Iowa citizens who believe President Obama is a Muslim and that that guides his policies. Moderator David Gregory asked the Speaker if he felt compelled to correct those voters. Boehner declined, saying his job is “not to tell the American people what to think.”

  The Speaker said he believes the president when he says he is a Christian and that he accepts the state of Hawaii’s declaration that Obama was born there, making him an American citizen, but he chose not to say that those who believe otherwise are wrong. As I watched, I wondered what the Speaker would say if a panel of voters told a moderator that Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is a member not of a real Christian faith but rather a cult, or that Ron Paul is a fascist. Would the Speaker not strongly challenge those erroneous beliefs?

  When confronted with similar allegations early in the 2008 campaign, Senator John McCain, running for the Republican presidential nomination, quickly corrected an Obama detractor. McCain said, “Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of to have as president.”

  Slashing rhetoric and outrageous characterizations have long been part of the American national political dialogue—Abraham Lincoln was portrayed as a subhuman ape in the highly partisan newspapers of his time—but modern means of communication are now so pervasive and penetrating they might as well be part of the air we breathe, and therefore they require tempered remarks from all sides. Otherwise, that air just becomes more and more toxic until it is suffocating.

  Personally, I’d like the partisan combatants on both sides of the aisle to explain their attitudes to a junior high civics class. Maybe their adolescent audience could teach them some manners and lessons in teamwork.

  These days anyone who enters the public arena is immediately cut from the herd and ear-tagged like a critter on a cattle ranch. Cable television anchors, radio talk-show hosts, and blogosphere commentators tag anyone who crosses their line of sight, and once on, the tag is tough to remove.

  On Fox News, the scarlet-letter tag is “liberal,” attached with a sneer. Keith Olbermann has special enmity for conservatives, for a while tagging a number of them as “the worst person in the world” during his popular run as an MSNBC commentator.

  I’ve found myself in both camps, especially in election years.

  In the closing days of the 2008 election I was attacked from the left when, on an episode of Meet the Press with guest John McCain, I reminded our viewers that it was the anniversary of his capture in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Earlier in that campaign, the liberal blogosphere lit up when I reported on Meet the Press that the one area in which Barack Obama continued to trail McCain was the public’s confidence in his qualifications to be commander in chief.

  To my mind, those were two relevant, objective facts worth noting in a campaign, but to the ideologues on the left, they certified me as a conservative sympathizer. The right is even more vigilant for any perceived signs of liberalism, picking over every utterance, written phrase, or personal reflection.

  For a public person this comes with the territory, but sometimes the reach is exaggerated to the point of being amusing. On occasion, when asked about the place of racial issues in the campaigns, I’ve said that my perspective is helped by the personal realization that in the early, formative stages of my career I was aware that if my skin pigment had been one shade darker I would have been denied opportunities at every turn, in Omaha, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

  Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves to declare me a “self-hating liberal.” Rush, of all people, should know that those of us who make a very good living listening to the sound of our own voices are incapable of self-hate. We think we’re grand, and I include Rush in that fraternity.

  Rush is at least an original, and his power is indisputable. He relishes his influence and the financial rewards that come with it. However you regard his message or personal style, he has earned his fortune by creating an enormous audience of the faithful, or “ditto-heads,” as they like to be called.

  A ditto-head is someone who worships at the altar of Limbaugh’s preaching, never questioning his conclusions or reasoning. Equivalents can be found on the left as well, slavishly loyal to the shibboleths spouted by the liberal faithful. You’ll find very little self-doubt or second thoughts on left-leaning websites such as Daily Kos or MoveOn. Org.

  THE PAST

  More than twenty years ago, a wise American who had served at the highest levels of the academic, public, and corporate world warned against just such a condition in American life.

  He was John Gardner, a PhD graduate of Stanford University; U.S. Marine Corps officer during World War II; president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; secretary of health, education, and welfare in the LBJ administration (he quietly resigned over Vietnam); and board member of the Shell Oil Company, American Airlines, and Time, Inc., among others.

  Gardner founded Common Cause, the citizen-based organization that brought together disparate groups to work on the problems of a changing America. He was also a member of President Reagan’s task force on private sector initiatives.

  Few members of America’s leadership class had the depth and breadth of his experiences, and fewer still commanded the personal and professional respect that Dr. Gardner did. He embodied what the Founding Fathers must have had in mind when they envisioned a republic of engaged citizens.

  As Gardner watched the rise of special interest groups across the political and economic spectrum in the sixties, he had serious concerns. In his seminal book On Leadership, Gardner wrote, “Unfortunately a high proportion of leaders in all segments of our society today … are rewarded for a single-minded pursuit of the interests of their group. They are rewarded for doing battle, not compromising.”

  In a chapter called “Fragmentation of the Common Good,” he asked,

  How many times have we seen a major city struggling with devastating problems while every possible solution is blocked by one or another powerful commercial or political or union interest?

  We are moving toward a society so intricately organized that the working of the whole system may be halted if one part stops functioning.

  He continued, “A society in which pluralism is not under-girded by some shared values and held together by some measure of public trust simply cannot survive.” That was written more than twenty-five years ago and is truer now than it was then.

  To emphasize his point, Gardner concluded, “Pluralism that reflects no commitment whatever to the common good is pluralism gone berserk.” The italics were his, to underscore his concern.

  I miss John Gardner as a fellow citizen. I came to know him personally, and I was always impressed by his quiet but forceful commitment to the common good. We have too few of those voices these days.

  THE PROMISE

  Another was the late A. Bartlett Giamatti, Renaissance literature scholar and president of Yale University. I collected his speeches, including the one he made to the incoming Yale freshman class in 1980. He said to these bright and no doubt anxious eighteen-year-olds that he understood their unease. “What is the point of it all?” he guessed they might be wondering. “And will anyone tell me or am I expected to know?”

  Giamatti, a true Renaissance man in his scholarship and wide-ranging interests, then reminded the class of something I trust they carried with them through Yale and beyond. “You are not expected to know,” he said, “but you are expected to wish to know.”

  What better advice for a young man or woman on the cusp of what passes for the real world? Think. Reason. Explore. Question.

  He went on to raise a rhetorical question—“Why does any ideology tend to be authoritarian?”—and then answered it: “These closed systems are attractive because they are simple and they are simple because the
y are such masterly evasions of contradictory, gray, complex reality. Those who manipulate such systems are compelling because they are never in doubt.”

  To a later class of Yale, he noted that the twentieth century was coming to a close. “The fact is,” Giamatti said, “nothing is old or tired or declining for you. You are new. You do not need the worn intellectual cloaks of others; you must weave your own, with which to walk out into the world.” He sent them on their way with a charge to be remembered by all: “Do not become one of those who only has the courage of other people’s convictions.”

  Dr. Giamatti left Yale for his other passion: He became the commissioner of Major League Baseball, a game he loved and wrote about with the pen of a poet and the hard lessons of a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan.

  “Baseball,” as he so memorably put it, “breaks your heart.”

  It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it, buffer the passage of time. To keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

  I became acquainted with Giamatti while teaching a guest lecturer course on politics in the television age in the late seventies. He monitored my course and invited me to lunch after I wrote a whimsical piece in The New York Times about grade inflation at Yale. I had lamented the absence of grade inflation during my undistinguished undergraduate years at the University of South Dakota, and apparently some of the Yale faculty were not amused.

  Bart was on my side, laughing as he encouraged me to keep assigning term papers and grading them on a meritocratic scale.