No absolutes; lots of absolutists

     Months ago, I wrote an idea on one of the index cards I carry in my shirt pocket; it said, "No absolutes, but lots of absolutists."
     Ever since I started writing the news in 1963, and especially once I was in positions to make news in political office, I've had the idea that life would be better if we had fewer absolutists.
     You know the type: Absolutely certain of his or her opinions, what is fact and what is hearsay (it's fact if it matches his opinion, hearsay if it does not).  More than willing to impose his truth on you and others, but offended if you disagree.
    When then-candidate Obama was campaigning, most of my friends were adamantly opposed to his election. Too left wing, they said. Absolutely liberal, they said, and they were absolutely certain he would always lean to the left.
     I disagreed, but not absolutely. Yes, he leans to the left, but he would not be a totally leftist President, I said. And, I prophesied, if he is elected, he will get as much grief from the liberal absolutists as he was getting then from the conservative absolutists.
     My argument was that he is too intelligent to be an absolutist, which only a few of my absolutist friends took as an insult.
     He may run as a liberal Democrat, but he will not be able to rule as one. Indeed, no elected official gets away with ruling anything in our culture. Not even Mitch McConnell or John Boehner. They can at most ride high with the moment with a certain absolutist faction.
     To get anything done, leaders will have to make adjustments -- call them compromises, changes of mind, even reversals as new information becomes apparent. There is the inevitable collision between ideals and realities, between intentions and interventions. In life, there are no absolutes.
     I used to grumble about the political correctness of the overly sensitive liberals, and was branded by some as a dyed in the wool conservative. More recently, I grumble more about the obstructionism of the extreme partisans on the right, and have been branded by some as a turncoat RINO -- that's an uncharacteristic cuteness that Republicans stumbled upon to label those whose dedication to unthinking loyalty is insufficient.
     I rest my case with the example going on now in Washington. First, the GOP holds the middle class hostage to get what it wants for their richer constituents. After some adjustments and deal-making, now it is the intransigent Left that is holding everyone hostage because they don't like seeing rich people and/or Republicans get away with anything.  Obama is vilified for being, in essence, a centrist.
    So if you think the recent elections successfully sent a message to elected officials about what Americans want to see from their leadership, I submit that you are not only wrong, but absolutely wrong.