Good morning, it's Friday, the day of the week when I pass along a quotation intended to be uplifting or enlightening. Today's comes from Mark Twain, with an assist from an unlikely source -- a former member of Congress. ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.") But that's not the quote I have in mind today.
On this date nine years ago, as the federal government headed for yet another partial shutdown amidst the Democrat-Republican budget battles, a timely poll by CNN-ORC International revealed that a large proportion of Americans thought their elected leaders were behaving more like "spoiled children" than "responsible adults."
Lawmakers were in Washington that weekend, but they spent their time on public relations rather than negotiating. Democrats were content to do little because polls showed they had the upper hand when it came to whom voters blamed for the looming shutdown. For their part, Republicans went around essentially making the case that congressional Democrats and the White House were just as intransigent as they were.
The sticking point was funding the Affordable Care Act. Although it was an important issue, not a trivial one, the debate featured historical comparisons that were a real stretch. The most overblown involved Neville Chamberlain, who on this date in 1938 returned to London from Germany, where he'd met with Adolf Hitler. His talks with the German chancellor, the British prime minister told the world, had produced "peace in our time."
It's common practice, if not human nature, to invoke pithy quotes and supposedly relevant historical precedents while arguing a particular point of view, but as the Wicked Witch of the West says, "These things must be done delicately." And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was not so delicate during his 2013 quasi-filibuster over the budget when he said:
"Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, ‘Accept the Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe but that's not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We can't possibly stand against them.'"
This is not exactly how Chamberlain put it. (Upon deplaning in London he told the crowds, "The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace." Outside 10 Downing Street later that day, he added, "I believe it is peace for our time…. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.")
The other problem with Cruz's analogy, as Sen. John McCain pointed out, is that Obamacare was a statute enacted peacefully in a Democratic society related to the delivery of health care insurance. The carving of Czechoslovakia, with approval from Great Britain, France, and Poland condemned hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths, and convinced Hitler that the Western democracies lacked the courage to fight.
Speaking of military comparisons, that same weekend another member of Texas' Republican congressional delegation, Rep. John Abney Culberson, quoted Ulysses S. Grant as telling his generals, "Quit worrying about what Bobby Lee's doing and let's focus on what we are doing." That attitude is how Grant won the war, Culberson said, implying that Republicans needed to stick to their plan and ignore the machinations of the likes of President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.
The main historical point was valid even if the quote was inexact. More noteworthy, from my point of view, was hearing a Southerner invoke Grant admiringly against the memory of Robert E. Lee. What is that, if not progress?
But the prize that weekend nine years ago went to arch-conservative Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp, who quoted Mark Twain. Nothing abnormal about that -- Twain gets cited often in politics -- but Huelskamp did an unusual thing: He more or less quoted Mark Twain correctly.
"Mark Twain once said, ‘Do the right thing and it will gratify some people and astonish the rest,'" Huelskamp told his colleagues. "America's been a little astonished by us doing the right thing in the last few days here in the House."
Twain's admonition, contained in a card he sent in 1901 to a Brooklyn, N.Y., church youth group, was as follows: "Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
