Rick Santorum’s comment during the recent GOP debate in Arizona in which he said, “sometimes you take one for the team,” in defense of his support for the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind legislation, which he now regrets, was both surprisingly honest and troubling.
Santorum, a supposed advocate of locally controlled education, even admitted that his support for the law went against his own principles. Of course Santorum is not alone in demonstrating such hypocritical political behavior; he was simply honest or foolish enough to express it verbally.
Politicians in both political parties willingly endorse initiatives advanced by the president when he’s a member their party even if they don‘t agree with the measure. I have no doubt that had a Democratic president proposed No Child Left Behind, Santorum would have had no difficulty finding reasons to vociferously condemn and demonize it, thereby avoiding any cognitive dissonance between his political beliefs and legislative actions.
His actions and those of many others in Washington reflect a childish “team mentality” that pervades our politics. Instead of objectively questioning or debating the merits of proposed laws, politicians mindlessly line up along partisan lines out of some misplaced ideological loyalty to prop up the president and their party.
Newsflash, the US Congress isn‘t a team sport. While leaders clearly represent distinct regional interests, they still have to work collectively for the common good of the nation as a whole. But partisan cheerleading, which too frequently guides decision making in Washington, undermines this core responsibility of national leadership.
Santorum’s honest gaffe, may have cost him his chance to grab the GOP presidential nomination from the presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, but it offered insight voters need to be mindful of in choosing who to support for president. Do they want a partisan team player or a leader who understands our collective national interest?
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