[Politics] The Misguided Politics of Loyalty

The Bush administration does not understand the concept of loyalty at all, and it will be their own demise.

The firing of eight U.S. prosecutors in the Justice Department late last year has prompted a Congressional investigation into the executive branches practices and how it infringes upon prosecutorial independence after it was revealed that the attorneys may have been forced out because they refused to investigate matters that came at the request of political allies to the White House. Now, the New York Times and Reuters are reporting that two years ago the White House suggested firing all 93 U.S. attorneys in an effort to keep political leanings at the Justice Department intact with their own. Reportedly, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Senior White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove settled on just a select list of candidates for firing.

None of this is surprising. I wish it were. The mob-style tactics of this administration to induce "loyalty" are nothing new. What is surprising is how misguided they are and, as a result, how much they are failing.

Bush, Rove, Cheney, and presumably many more insiders, seem to be of the belief that loyalty means you do what they say. In other words, they think true loyalty is being faithful to your associates; they believe loyalty is to people. This belief is one of society's tragic flaws. Loyalty should not be to people; loyalty is something you have toward your principals. If you are loyal to your principals, loyalty to people will come as a reflection of those principals; if you are loyal only to people or organizations instead, your principals will be sold out in favor of theirs. That is not freedom.

The fact is, I think most of the judges and attorneys in this country know this. The administration pegs so many of them as "activist judges" or "politically-motivated attorneys," but these accusations are all a smokescreen for the administration's belief that the government should be loyal by them and not by the principals those branches of government were founded upon. Even someone like Antonin Scalia, who may seem to toe the Bush administration line, realizes that the dignity and responsibility of his position lies within his willingness to be loyal to the word of the law. He is free to interpret the law (and Lord knows I usually disagree with that interpretation), but even within his political leanings he remains true to what he believes is written within the law, and not to what the executive branch wishes was written into the law.

For me it is hard to understand how forcing loyalty into the ranks can create the environment you wish. Loyalty to people and organizations is far more corruptible than loyalty to one's principals. I, for one, am much less trusting of someone who is more loyal to another's whims than to their own values. Shouldn't everyone be?