(This article is adapted from remarks delivered to the
combined classes of the Jesse Helms School of Government at Liberty
University last February 21.)
SOMEONE ONCE SAID there are three types of people in the world:
Those who make things happen; those who watch what happens; and
those who never know what happened.
Let us presume for a moment that you, personally, have become
well-educated, that your thirst for knowledge has enabled you to
learn how to make things happen, that you have already achieved a
number of remarkable successes, that many people recognize you as a
rising leader.
Are you home free? Are your problems over?
Not hardly.
You see, success brings its own, unique set of problems. The
Bible often gives examples of how pride goeth before a fall. A run
of success, like power, tends to corrupt. That is not to suggest
that you shouldn’t strive to be successful. Far from it. You have
an obligation to put your God-given talents to their best use.
In college, you should strive to be the type of student your
professors find it a thrill to teach. In business, you should
become someone with whom it is a pleasure to work. In politics, you
should act effectively for your deeply held principles.
So there’s no question that intelligent, moral people should
strive for success. And striving prudently for success quite often
actually does bring success.
But when you strive for success, as you should, you should
always keep in your mind that success brings with it its own, new
set of problems. Be prepared in advance to deal with the problems
of success.
Foremost among the problems of success is the temptation, once
you’re really successful, to believe that you are so special that
the rules no longer apply to you, that you’re so important you can
do as you please, without regard to the standards, ethics, and
morality which contributed to your success.
FOR A YEAR NOW, THE NEWS MEDIA have heavily covered the troubles of
a prominent national lobbyist named Jack Abramoff. You’ve probably
heard a lot about him, almost all of it bad, very bad.
Jack Abramoff made tens of millions of dollars. On the other
hand, he has pled guilty to numerous felonies and is almost
certainly going to jail for a number of years. The scandals
surrounding him may destroy the careers of a number of politicians
and could have a major effect in next November’s elections.
You probably have heard nothing good at all about Jack Abramoff.
But I’m here to tell you the whole story, which is not to be found
in the headlines. His entire story should be highly educational to
you and to any other young conservative who strives for
success.
Jack Abramoff had a sterling reputation. Yes, a sterling
reputation.
I met and trained Jack Abramoff during the 1980 Youth For Reagan
effort, which I oversaw as a volunteer. My faculty and I trained
young men and women in five Reagan Youth Staff Schools that year
and hired 30 of the best for campus organizing in the 1980 fall
campaign.
Jack Abramoff, then a student at Brandeis University and College
Republican state chairman of Massachusetts, was clearly one of the
most outstanding of the 300 graduates of those two-day training
schools.
I personally offered Jack one of our 30 field staff jobs.
Jack graciously declined and told me, “I’m going back to
Massachusetts and organize enough students there to carry
Massachusetts for Reagan.”
I laughed and replied, “Jack, if you carry Massachusetts for
Reagan, we’ll win in a national landslide.”
He did, and we did. Governor Reagan beat President Jimmy Carter
in Massachusetts by 2,421 votes. Jack’s campus effort garnered many
more than that number of student absentee ballots for Reagan
there.
The next year, partly on the strength of his remarkable success
in winning Massachusetts for Reagan, Jack was elected chairman of
the College Republican National Committee. There again he succeeded
spectacularly.
In 1980, the number of College Republican (CR) clubs on the
nation’s campuses had grown from 250 to 1,002. In 1981, Jack’s
campus organizing efforts increased the number of CR clubs to 1,100
— a new record which remained unsurpassed until very recent
years.
While a national CR officer, Jack widened his network of friends
among conservative Republicans, impressing everyone. Jack was
courageously conservative on all the issues: limited government,
free enterprise, strong national defense, and traditional moral
values.
Moreover, Jack obviously took his Orthodox Jewish faith
seriously. He kept kosher. He would not travel on the Sabbath. He
deplored profanity and vulgarity.
Jack dropped out of politics for some years to make movies,
including at least one which had some worldwide success, an
anti-Communist action drama titled Red Scorpion.
Then he returned to political activity and explained he had
found that, without major financial resources, he couldn’t control
his movies’ content because the industry inserted into them,
against his will, gratuitous profanity and vulgarity.
Back in the political arena, Jack benefited greatly from the
magnificent reputation he had earned. He had proved himself highly
intelligent, highly principled, and highly competent. Clearly he
was a hard worker and a talented leader.
He joined one of the best known and most successful legal and
lobbying firms in the Washington, D.C., area. Because Jack had
built a very wide circle of friends in the political process, those
of us who had known him since the early 1980s expected him to be
successful as a lobbyist.
He started up an Orthodox Jewish school and spent a lot of his
own time and money on it. His reputation continued as clean as a
hound’s tooth.
Fast forward to today. His reputation lies in tatters. The
wealth he reportedly gained as a lobbyist may be eaten up entirely
as a result of his legal problems. He’ll soon be broke — and in
jail.
MANY WHO RELIED ON THE STERLING reputation Jack built from his
youth stand now accused as guilty of consorting with this sleazy
character, Jack Abramoff.
That’s a bum rap against some conservatives who relied on his
good reputation. He may have betrayed and damaged them, but they
should not be dragged down by the guilt-by-association method.
Fortunately for me, I never had any business relations with him
or any contact with his lobbying activities. But before allegations
regarding his business and lobbying activities arose, I and
everyone I know who knew Jack since he was a college student 26
years ago would have given him a highly favorable
recommendation.
Those who knowingly consort with sleazy people are culpable.
Those who associate with people whom they know have good
reputations are not. That does not, however, prevent the unfair use
of the guilt-by-association technique by the opponents of even the
most scrupulous people.
Political activists and leaders have no secure defense against
the possibility that some associate who has a fine reputation will
somehow succumb to disgraceful temptations.
When the newspapers began to publish and re-publish excerpts
from Jack’s emails regarding his lobbying business, I could not
believe he had written them. Surely, I thought, someone has made up
those emails to smear Jack.
Sadly, over time it has become clear that he has behaved in ways
highly disappointing to those, like me, who knew and admired him
from his youth.
A principled person does not discuss his clients with contempt.
A careful person does not send out personally damning emails into
the immortal cyberworld. A moral person does not support opposing
sides in order to profit from each. An ethical person does not
defraud his associates in business. A loyal person does not set up
his friends for embarrassment.
JACK ABRAMOFF’S FALL FROM GRACE is not unique. Sadly, I know too
many examples of people who built good reputations and extensive
political networks who changed dramatically and for the worse when
they decided to earn their livings through lobbying or political
consulting.
A great many people can’t resist temptations to increase their
income. They hire themselves out to people or causes they would
have spurned in the days when they built their reputations by
consistent adherence to well-defined political and moral
principles. Some sink mighty low.
Jack has proven again the wisdom often taught me by my mother
and my grandmother, “A good reputation is the hardest thing to
build and the easiest thing to destroy.”
In political activity, when one abandons long-held principles
and starts measuring success only by revenue, one should have the
decency not to drag down one’s formerly trusting friends.
Those whose trust is betrayed are the victims. The victims
deserve our sympathy and understanding, not condemnation.
In his statement after pleading guilty, Jack Abramoff said that
his greatest regret was the damage he had done to those who trusted
him. Right. But when he was raking in those millions of dollars,
while privately showering his clients with contempt, he didn’t give
much thought to the consequences.
Blinded by his own success, Jack succumbed to some very human
and very common temptations — temptations which should be fought
and resisted by any highly successful person.
Think about this. What if Jack Abramoff had resisted all the
temptations spread before him? What if he had decided to work only
for clients and causes in accord with his previously long-held
conservative principles?
Would he have made as much money as rapidly? Probably not.
On the other hand, had Jack stuck to his principles, he would
certainly have achieved some financial success. He would have kept
his sterling reputation. He would not now be headed to jail. And he
would not have brought scandal to his friends or disaster to his
family.
