Un Mélange

I watched Jeffrey Simpson participate in a Symposium on Ethics in the Public Service a couple of years ago. It was on CPAC on a Sunday afternoon. It's not that I'm a geek or a nerd or anything, it's just that there's so little to watch these days that's simply entertaining. Mr. Simpson is both informative and entertaining.

I'm not big on boxing or football or car-racing or any of that jock stuff. It has occurred to me to wonder how much the shortage of entertainment has to do with the shortage of ad revenue from all the social sins of the day like tobacco, drinking and big cars.

Jeffrey Simpson is an award winning journalist and author. His subject is government but not much at our level. He is a happy man. He talks with a smile in his voice. He is successful in his calling.

I was delighted to find he was convocation speaker at Queen's University at my grand-daughter's graduation... His subject, of course, was government and politicians - the players.

There were thousands of graduates. The arena was charged with the excitement of parents and graduates alike. And a pompous ceremony it is.

Margaret Somerville was convocation speaker at Waterloo a couple of summers before. She is the lady who caused such a ruckus at Ryerson last year because she dared to suggest that marriage is intended as a legal bond between a man and a woman. She is a highly learned person and a great speaker, but even if she weren’t, is it not outrageous to think that anyone in Canada is not entitled to an opinion without being personally maligned - by university staff and graduates no less.

Anyway, back to Jeffrey Simpson. He told the students that it's okay to be a skeptic. It's not okay to be cynical. He took the blame for cynicism in our society on his own profession. He talked about their self-righteous inclination towards knowing all things and how low are all politicians.

He said politicians are just like the rest of society - well-meaning and doing the best job they know how.


I hoped the kids were listening to him, but I doubt it. Maybe it's just as well. Experience tells me the young form their own opinions. Doesn't much matter what adults have to say. They keep having to learn it themselves the hard way.

It's also just as well because Jeffrey Simpson only knows politicians and public servants as an observer, more than a casual observer, but an observer nevertheless.

He is much better placed to know the players in his own field. If he ever became a player in politics, his authority would be much improved. He might even become a cynic.

He is right about one thing though; in general, politicians are just like everybody else .. no better and no worse ..and not everybody doing the best job possible.

I've read a number of political memoirs and more than one biography of the greatest leader of them all .. not Moses .. Winston Churchill. Actually, I have never finished a biography about Churchill. They are too long and they invariably become tedious. I think authors of massive tomes must be paid by the pounds of paper they use AND the numbers of words.

It was said Churchill never gave interviews. He apparently had the philosophy that if anyone was going to make money out of his life, it was going to be him. I believe I was privileged to have been part of the history that was Churchill's. It doesn't mean I think the man was a paragon of virtue. He wasn't. And although he was a child of privilege, his childhood was anything but nurturing. Leaders don't have to be saints. In fact,considering the nature of the job there is a definite possibility they won't..

No politician ever tells the whole truth about everything he knows. He has to think about his place in history and about how well the book will sell.