Civility and Collegiality

These are qualities I respect, but I notice that they like everything are turned into weapons these days. On civility:

With less than a month before the primary, however, Smith withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Nethercott. Smith’s decision came after he and Nethercott met for coffee to discuss the campaign and the issues at stake.

Another topic over coffee was the tenor of politics in Wyoming these days...the scorched earth nature of campaigns, the deluge of misinformation presented to voters, the intensely personal attacks and the overall feeling of nausea that results from seeing our political process degenerate into a gutter fight.

Smith, not wanting to contribute to this political angst, withdrew and endorsed his opponent.

I’ll correct myself. There are two examples of political statesmanship evident here. 

The first being two political rivals setting differences and all the attendant bullshit aside to sit down over coffee and pick each other’s brain. That is almost a revolutionary act of civility in today’s atmosphere. It should be applauded by voters and emulated by other candidates.

The second act of statesmanship is Smith stepping down. This took courage and suggests that both candidates were motivated by reason instead of emotion. Politics in Wyoming needs a lot more reason and a lot less emotion these days. And this act, too, deserves to be applauded and emulated.

So, my sweaty ol’ Stetson is tipped to both Tara Nethercott and Gregg Smith. 

I really do appreciate that, but I notice that the rest of the column is devoted to running down "the Freedom Caucus" and "Young Americans for Liberty," and so forth and so on. So civility is great, as long as the right wing guy steps down and endorses the left wing girl.

Meanwhile, collegiality:

Of late, Justice Kagan has been pushing the latter conception of collegiality–that it entails having an open mind, and a willingness to be persuaded. I have to imagine this push is part of her effort to corral Justice Barrett's votes at every opportunity. If there is any common thread with Joan Biskupic's reporting, is that Justice Kagan flipped Justice Barrett in several cases. I've yet to see any indication that a conservative Justice has flipped a liberal member of the court to reach a conservative outcome. Flipping is not ambidextrous–it only works on the left.

There's got to be a way to be civil and collegial without giving away the store. 

UPDATE: Related.