The Middle Way: Sarkozy v Bush

This morning, E.J. Dionne (of the Brookings Institute) published a column in the Washington Post suggesting that George Bush could learn a thing or two from the new conservative French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, about a politics that unites rather than divides. George Bush said that he would bring a bi-partisan approach to Washington, but the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld leadership in the administration clearly took him away from that approach early on. Sarkozy is taking a major step toward bringing different factions in France into unity by recommending the appointment of French Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn for selection as head of the International Monetary Fund. It may be suggested that this is a political maneuver on the part of Sarkozy. Dionne says, yes, of course it is. But this politically-motivated gesture of Sarkozy's is "inspirational" Dionne writes.

Bush said, while running for President in 1999: "I've learned you cannot lead by dividing people. This country is hungry for a new style of campaign. Positive. Hopeful. Inclusive. A campaign that attracts new faces and new voices. A campaign that unites all Americans toward a better tomorrow." This was the type of rhetoric that made me cautiously optimistic that he might be the type of candidate that I was looking for at the time. I, long ago, admitted that I was terribly wrong about Bush. As Dionne puts it, "Forget impeachment. Given how Bush has governed for most of his presidency, can one of those trial lawyers he loathes sue him for product misrepresentation?"

Sarkozy, on the other hand, asks, "Should I deprive France of his candidacy because he is a Socialist? How could I be the president of all the French if I reasoned like that?"

Indeed. How could any leader be the president of all of any people if they govern in a divisive manner after an election? The answer is that they cannot. One of the requisites of good government is to be a uniter of a people, and not a divider.

As a philosopher, I have found that Aristotle, Confucius, and Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) were all right in emphasizing philosophies of the Middle Way. The injudicious mind wavers off to an imbalance of left or right, while the judicious mind recognizes the fundamental principle of the universe represented by the symbol of the taijitu (yin and yang). The truth of the unity of Being is that there is no ultimate division that can be described on the metaphor of black and white.

There is a middle path in America that people naturally gravitate to over time. American politicians are ignoring the middle, and appealing to radical bases. Any politics of the extreme will feel horrible and full of conflict over the long run. I, for one, long for a politics of the middle again.