Bart Stupak, Moderate Martyr?

I disagree with David Brooks’ comments from late last week:

JIM LEHRER: What about the announcement today by Bart Stupak, the moderate Democrat from Michigan…

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

JIM LEHRER: … who said he is not going to run again? Of course, he was very much involved in the abortion issue during the debate. Should he be seen as a victim of the health care reform debate?

DAVID BROOKS: I think so, and the evacuation of the moderates. He is a member of Congress, of whom there used to be many, who is economically pretty liberal, socially quite conservative. And that used to be a type.

And you would have types like that. And he sort of stood for them. But there weren’t many during this debate. And so he has been hit viciously from both sides, from the left, from people who are upset because he almost dethroned or got in the way of health care, from the right, people who think he stood for pro-life and then became the Benedict Arnold of the pro-life cause by signing on.

So, he has been hit both ways. And I think it was extremely unlikely he was going to win again. He has been there awhile, has done a lot of things.

JIM LEHRER: Eighteen years, yes.

DAVID BROOKS: And so he is someone who is sort of stuck in the middle there, and there is little room for that.

There is a trap that constantly snares self-proclaimed moderates and centrists. If there are partisans to my left and partisans to my right, then surely my position must be correct? No, not at all.

It is one thing to be a real moderate. Moderates seek compromise. It is an entirely different thing to masquerade as an unflinching man of principle, only to bend in the face of overwhelming political pressure. Not surprisingly, those who share Stupak’s commitment to the pro-life cause consider him an embarrassment.

But pro-choice, pro-health reform advocates have just as much reason to be furious. Stupak’s intransigence lengthened the healthcare debate considerably. The longer it lasted, the stronger the Republicans grew. Even though the bill passed, Stupak has done lasting damage to his party.

If Stupak acted on principle, even Democrats might have a grudging respect for him. But when Stupak bowed in exchange for an empty executive order, it only heightened the Democrats’ contempt. If he were going to surrender for nothing, couldn’t he have done it nine months earlier?

Brooks is right that Stupak was caught in the vise grip of his own commitment to both economic liberalism and social conservatism. Yet Stupak’s efforts to reconcile those commitments were anything but sensible or moderate. His resignation speaks to his personal failure, not to any intolerance for moderation.