Memo to yesterday’s men: give it a rest

Brian Mulroney appears unable, or at least unprepared, to leave well enough alone. In his most recent attempt to sway history his way - in a book that received much more attention than it probably deserves - he seemingly stops short of little, including attacking the dead. (Attacking the dead is rightly considered bad form as they don’t have the ability to respond, though I wouldn’t put this past Pierre Elliot Trudeau).

Such attacks, and the apparent desperation of a sort that gives pathos a bad name, have been well assessed by other columnists and it’s tempting just to let this one go. But here too there may be something to learn.

It has been said, apparently by a subtle thinking, ironic ex-Dean of the Law School at Dalhousie, that “good teaching is a process of giving yourself away.” There’s more truth to this than most teachers would wish to acknowledge, at any of its various levels of meaning. But if not for teachers, this quotation is undeniably apt for some politicians.

It’s not so much that they give their lives over to their work, as many do, often at considerable personal cost, or that they often martyr their better judgment, or even that they don’t always know as much as we would wish, or as much as they believe. It’s instead that they reveal more of their character than they think, and it ain’t always pretty. Why would Brian Mulroney, in drawing further attention to himself, wish to risk embarrassing his kids, harming the political fortunes of his friends or making it even more difficult for most of us to warm to the memory of his Prime-Ministership?

One possible explanation, of the sort proffered in a really interesting book by Freudian Stephen Frosh, is that a generation of leaders, including, one might assume, Bill Clinton, are largely narcissists, that there’s something in the processes of their psychological development that has gone askew, something that prevents them from transcending the special beauty they find in their own reflection.

Well, perhaps…. Mr. Mulroney arguably takes pleasure in his own presence in locations where appearance matters. (But then, so do some columnists, who like to see their words in print, at least when they’re not whining in a corner in a fetal position, worried about what others really think about them. So perhaps we just won’t go there.)

Another possible explanation is that Mulroney sees, especially in the rising star of Maxime Bernier, a chance to get back in action; that working the phones only works if folks will take your calls, and one way to make this so is to stake out some public space. This seems plausible, given Mulroney’s sense that the grand coalition he forged is being rebuilt and that there well could be a place for him. But unless I’m mistaken, his book will mean soon that fewer folks will take his calls than there would be if he were happy to be just a good old uncle to the party.

It could be that he needs the money. But how sad would that be?

Or it could be that he, and the thinkers in the Conservative Party, are convinced that throwing a few punches at PET and Duceppe will rally the money and energy of the folks in St. Hyacinthe, just before the by-election Sept. 21, giving them the Québec victory that they want so badly.

Having Mulroney do some of the work in the corner could be seen as one way of keeping Steve’s hands less bloodied. And it would leave Harper free to take shots at Election Canada for tolerating the face-covering of Islamic women, stirring, in the process, the less than happy pure laine pot in Québecois Bleu.

But the real lesson here is one that most of us need to learn before we make ourselves miserable, appearing as foolish old men and women. There’s a time to pass the mantle and we will be remembered partly by how gracefully we do so.

Sure, Brian, take some calls when folks need your advice, have a few drinks with the gang, tell some stories. We’ll like you a lot better and maybe even forgive your mistakes and weaknesses if you just come to realize that it isn’t always about doing, about being a player. Ask any Zen master; sometimes just being is enough.