Absence of Grace

People often speak of an absence of civility in Washington, but that's not quite the problem. Faking civility is a primary operating style: "My esteemed colleague."

What is needed is grace — sensitivity, mercy, generosity of spirit, a courtesy so deep it amounts to beauty. We will have to summon it. And the dreadful thing is you can't really fake it.

A very small theory, but my latest, is that many politicians and journalists lack a certain public grace because they spent their formative years in the American institution most likely to encourage base assumptions and coldness toward the foe. Yes, boarding school, and tony private schools in general. The last people with grace in America are poor Christians and religiously educated people of the middle class. The rich gave it up as an affectation long ago. Too bad, since they stayed in power.

The latest example of a lack of grace in Washington is the exchange between Jim Webb and President Bush at a White House Christmas party. Mr. Webb did not want to pose with the president and so didn't join the picture line. Fair enough, everyone feels silly on a picture line. Mr. Bush approached him later and asked after his son, a Marine. Mr. Webb said he'd like his son back from Iraq. Mr. Bush then, according to the Washington Post, said: "That's not what I asked you. How's your son?" Mr. Webb replied that's between him and his son.

For this Mr. Webb has been roundly criticized. And on reading the exchange I thought it had the sound of the rattling little aggressions of our day, but not on Mr. Webb's side. Imagine Lincoln saying, in such circumstances, "That's not what I asked you." Or JFK. Or Gerald Ford!

"That's not what I asked you" is a sentence straight from cable TV, from which many Americans are acquiring an attitude toward public and even private presentation.

Our interviewers and anchors have been taught, or learned, that they must show who's in charge, who's demanding answers, who's uncompromising in his search for truth. But of course they're not in search of truth; they're on a search for dominance.

Interviewers now always, as you have noticed, interrupt the person they're interviewing. Yes, they are trying to show who's in control of this conversation, and yes, they're trying to catch the interviewee off guard in hope of making news. They are attempting to keep trained and practiced politicians from launching unfruitful filibusters and boring everyone.

But interviewers also interrupt their subjects because they don't want the camera on the subject. They want the camera on themselves. <...>

The Dominance of the Face leads to the inevitability of the interruption:

"Why did you vote 'no'?"

"I felt--"

"But why'd you do it?"

"Well, the implications of the question, and the merits of the arguments seemed--"

"That's not what I asked you!"

Because of this style, no one in America has been allowed to finish a sentence in the past 10 years. And it is not confined to cable but has spread to the networks, to government, and is starting to affect regular people, encouraging in them a conversational style that is not friendly or graceful, but depositional.

This has not contributed to the presence of grace in our public life.

Peggy Noonan — past speechwriter to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — wrote this in 2006. (Its political content is timely: Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has recently been mentioned as a potential Vice-Presidential Democratic nominee.)

But risking castigation as lacking grace myself, I might differ with Ms. Noonan as to the holders of grace in today's society. No religion — or non-religion — has a lock on that sacramental civility.

As often as one may encounter incivility, one can occasionally encounter anonymous politeness, pleasantry, collegiality, gentle discourse, and — okay, I'll say it — random acts of kindness.

Whether these are religiously spurred, I cannot — and should not be able to — tell. The very implication of grace is that it demands no recognition. It is not even its own reward. It is, simply put, the right thing to do.

And that is why I believe grace rare to find ... and personally difficult to practice.