President's feet to the fire in examination of his ethics

Duane Davis, Special To The News

Friday, March 19, 2004

As much as the next person, I enjoy watching a politician's feet being put to the fire - particularly one like George W. Bush, who's been so busy of late piling up kindling around himself.

Whether it's the intelligence-gathering on the phantom weapons of mass destruction, seemingly headed up by Maxwell Smart, the fuzzy math of a Medicare drug bill that in one week went from costing $400 billion to $534 billion, or an education program with such costly baggage that even Republican-controlled states are in open revolt against him, Bush appears to have strolled out on a very high limb, armed only with an ax for a tax cut and a chain saw for cutting off the very limb he's standing on.

It was, then, with some eagerness that I began Peter Singer's new book, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, in which Singer proposes to examine our president's ethics as "found in his speeches, writings and other comments" and then to show how he has either lived up to, or failed to live up to, those statements.

Well. You can see the problem right off. Finding a politician whose statements differ from his actions, one who says this today and does that tomorrow, is about as hard to find as an Irishman wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, the real challenge would be to find a politician who tells the truth about what he does.

If it can be argued (and it can) that a major facet of successful politics is the "art" of compromise, it's little wonder that statements made in the bright light of day-to-day campaigning and governing are often recast in the dim shade of closed committee rooms.

No suprise then that the Australian-born Singer steps up to this barrel of fish with a 12-gauge shotgun and scores hit after hit. By the time you finish the book, you're surprised by two things: that you're starting to feel sorry for Bush and that Singer has managed to make bashing Dubya the most boring spectator sport this side of golf.

This isn't the usual reaction he inspires. A figure of some controversy, Singer is that rarest of intellectuals: a philosopher who's been noticed. Currently a professor of bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, Singer is often credited with providing the impetus for the more radical wing of the animal-rights movement with his 1975 book Animal Liberation. In that book, he argues that a dog's life is not necessarily worth less than a human's and that there are circumstances under which it would be more ethical to perform necessary medical experiments on disabled orphans than on rats.

With thinking like this, one can't help but wonder on reading this book whether Singer has transported himself to an alternate universe. I have the sneaking suspicion that all too often his analyses of the "real-life" words and actions of Bush, or politicians in general, are more in the line of "thought experiments" than genuine examinations of what happens in real life.

For example: Bush's decision to invade Afghanistan - a decision, it should be pointed out, that had widespread support among Americans. Singer argues that the war to free the country from the rule of the Taliban and to root out the al-Qaida presence was neither justified nor ethical. He reaches this conclusion based on a thoroughly logical process in which he examines whether Bush's determination for war meets the "just-war theory" as detailed in "The Challenge of Peace," "a much-praised statement on when it is just to go to war adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops." Singer finds that the decision to invade Afghanistan meets only four of the seven criteria and, therefore, that the war cannot be justified.

While he can understand that "the horrendous nature of the attacks of Sept. 11 . . . swayed people's judgment and prevented the kind of calm reasoning that is desirable before making a momentous decision that puts at risk the lives of many people, including innocents," Singer writes, he also contends that to allow ourselves to be swayed by those emotions is a betrayal of true ethical behavior and tantamount to murder.

The world is far too complicated to yield to this sort of thinking. Singer proposes a rationality unavailable not just to politicians but, I suspect, even to saints. That doesn't mean this book is a waste of time. Far from it - it presents arguments not just about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (which, though he hedges his bets a bit, Singer tentatively concludes was both unethical and illegal) but about Bush's economic and education policies, arguments that help to clarify the weaknesses and failures of the present administration.

Ultimately, though, Singer seems too far removed from the arena in which he's chosen to fight. I prefer the gritty, down-and-dirty combat favored by such columnists as Molly Ivins, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. They know full well that in a mud fight, no one gets to go home with clean hands.

Duane Davis is a freelance writer living in Littleton.