by Francis Porretto
Politicians are people who desire power over others, whether they sincerely seek to serve the public, or believe themselves worthy of it, or are simply pursuing their own interests by political means. In the overwhelmingly most common case, power is their highest priority; for some, it’s the only thing that matters. It causes them to say things they come to regret, and sometimes to do things they later wish they’d never done, specifically to gain or retain high office.
Even Thomas Jefferson, by far the most intelligent, principled, and clear-sighted of the Founding Fathers, had many regrets about his time in public life. Indeed, his regrets over the extra-Constitutional measures he approved, several of them out of reluctance to challenge their proponents within his supporters’ ranks, were the seeds that, through the efforts of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas Hart Benton, in 1828 birthed the Democratic Party.
Contemporary politicians don’t bear comparison with Jefferson in any way. The best of them is a gutless, brainless pygmy compared to the Sage of Monticello. Yet if Jefferson could falter and fail in a fashion that would haunt him forever after, how much more easily would such failures come to a self-promoting, conscience-challenged, power-uber-alles politician of our time?
