[Mb-civic] MUST READ: Hubris On the Hill - Ruth Marcus - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Hubris On the Hill

By Ruth Marcus
Saturday, October 8, 2005; Page A21

For many politicians, hubris isn't merely an occupational hazard, it's a 
central facet of personality. And often, the more successful the 
official, the more pronounced the trait. The confidence that you have 
the capacity to lead, the conviction that you, above all others, should 
be chosen to do so -- these can easily edge into the kind of 
thumb-in-the-eye-of-the-gods arrogance that inevitably invites downfall.

Hubris, indeed, can be seen at the core of the twin dramas that have 
ensnared two top congressional leaders. But the fault takes many forms, 
and its manifestations in the cases of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist 
(R-Tenn.) and former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are as 
different as the two lawmakers themselves.

Frist's hubris is that of the man whose overweening self-regard is such 
that he can't imagine that anyone would question his behavior; DeLay's 
is that of the man whose relentless drive for power is such that he 
doesn't care what people think. To put it in mythological terms, Frist 
is Narcissus, so taken with his own image that he came to ruin; DeLay is 
Icarus, so convinced of his ability to flout the limits that apply to 
ordinary mortals that he became the instrument of his own destruction.

In the classic arc of hubris, the flawed figure offends the gods and is 
brought low. It's too soon, of course, to know whether the Frist and 
DeLay plot lines will follow this trajectory. There is, right now, more 
smoke than evidence that Frist engaged in any insider trading. And 
though DeLay has been indicted, his nemesis, Texas prosecutor Ronnie 
Earle, either lacks explicit proof of DeLay's own contribution to the 
alleged campaign finance conspiracy or is cannily hiding his best cards.

Yet the experience of their predecessors of both parties -- Jim Wright, 
Tony Coelho, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston -- is ominous for the two 
politicians. It suggests a riff on Euripides: Whom the gods would 
destroy, they first elect to leadership posts.

If so, the seeds of Frist's folly were planted at the outset of his 
political life. The flawed Fristian premise was that he was more doctor 
than politician; that he could transplant the wisdom and compassion of 
the heart surgeon into a new legislative career focused on health care.

But at the same time, Frist, the scion of a family that had made its 
fortune in the field, dismissively rejected the notion that his 
continuing to own millions of dollars of stock in the family company 
might call into question his judgment on these very issues. So 
transfixed was he by his own self-image and his conviction that his 
character was above question that he could not understand how this 
irreducible conflict would appear to others.

The ironic twist here is where the Narcissus analogy falls short, 
because in the end Frist would have been better off if he had hewed to 
his original self-absorption. The fateful move that has produced a pair 
of federal investigations is Frist's decision to reverse course -- a 
decade too late and on the eve of a presidential bid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100701661.html?nav=hcmodule
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