Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
— “Character of the Happy Warrior,” William Wordsworth, 1836
GROVER CLEVELAND LOVED THE POEM, would gladly recite it to
friends, and directed that it be read at his funeral. Long before
anyone had heard of “re-branding,” Franklin Roosevelt nominated an
urban Catholic redistributionist at the 1924 Democratic Convention,
positioning his fellow New Yorker Al Smith as a sensible reformer,
a “Happy Warrior on the political battlefield.” In the next
generation, Hubert Humphrey fought against communism and for social
justice as the Happy Warrior, even using the title to name his
campaign plane.
Though soaked in the English romanticism of the early nineteenth
century, the remarkable power of these words projected across
borders and across time. More than a century later, they continued
to resonate in the psyche of American politicians. Wordsworth
celebrates the warrior, who — despite personal pain and/or
negative outcome — is impossible to defeat, sustained in virtue
and in happiness by an idealized vision of both the larger cause
and the waiting home. As the nineteenth century ended, these
classic romantic ideas of self-honesty, morality and the virtue of
the modest hearth grafted perfectly onto the blossoming concepts of
American duty and American exceptionalism. That such noble a set of
verses could have shaped the heart of so many of our leaders makes
America eternally indebted to this foreign poet — and right now
desperate for his Warrior’s return.
Since Humphrey, the Happy Warrior has been largely missing in
action. The only significant references of the last two decades
were to President Ronald Reagan — but only after he
passed away. Basically, entering the early eighties post-Carter
polarized environment, Reagan was too good an actor to let himself
be perceived as a “warrior.” His admittedly cheerful, though
passive-aggressive style destroyed competitors from within — both
foreign and domestic.
As always when something bad happens, there will be the social
critics who want to blame institutions and not people. Political
author Joe Klein might point out that the demise of the Happy
Warrior was concurrent with the rise of the campaign consultant.
Senator McCain might say the villain was campaign spending, scaring
away heroes from entering the public arena. Marshall McLuhan might
blame the tube and its power to project beauty devoid of virtue.
But these social developments are not causes: they are simply
technocratic advances that generally just leverage the direction
the population is already heading.
Who killed him, then? For that, we need to identify real people
and check their hands for blood. Fortunately, our search can begin
with the clues embedded into the poem. And even if we can’t yet
definitively identify the “real killer,” we sure can isolate some
darn good suspects.
Clue # 1
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
Suspect: Richard Nixon — a warrior, yes — but
not a happy one. A character forged in the Depression and burnished
by the rough politics of fighting the Kennedys, the “New Nixon” of
1968 was no longer angry, but projected tough competence. Optimism
was a form of weakness. Victorious over Happy Warrior Humphrey, by
the time Nixon left office absolutely no one was talking about the
“politics of joy.”
Clue #2
He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe’er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
Suspect: Rep. Pat Schroeder was not interested
in the Happy Warrior — she used her considerable congressional
power to push for the Asexual, Testosterone-free Warrior. From
dismembering the Top Gun team to pushing women into service
positions they were neither built nor brain-wired to hold, she
undermined the concept of home and hearth, and robbed the Warrior
of his emotional lodestar.
Clue #3
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Suspect: Bill Clinton did tremendous damage
because he looked superficially so much like the Happy Warrior.
Indeed, it was his confident, joyful optimism that defeated
President Bush in 1992, with his call to protect the “home’ of each
citizen. But when push came to shove, we saw his raw boomer
selfishness: his apparent idealism was just one more con.
WE ARE NOW FIGHTING an enemy whose “virtue” is strikingly
symmetrical to “the happy warrior.” Incessantly, often helplessly,
we are told that this is an enemy who says “we value death more
than you (the West) value life.” How, people ask, can we fight
against that? They have a point: if one side has a grounding in the
infinite and the other does not, then that first side has a
tremendous advantage. Only a Happy Warrior — spiritually grounded
in all that is life-affirming — can triumph over those who promote
an infinitely satanic abyss.
The good news is that, as we wallow here stateside, the Happy
Warrior is planning his return. He is being reborn, right now, in
places like Fallujah and Mosul and Tall Afar. He (or She) has been
purified from the deceit, dishonor and malaise that (with the
exception of our President) have choked real political leadership.
He will come back from those battlefields, laugh at the moral rot
of our mainstream academic and religious institutions, and ignore
the defeatism of our punditocracy. Deftly, he will transition into
our next generation of Political Warrior, re-injecting idealism and
virtue into the public square. And he will lead us to an inevitable
victory.
Let’s just hope he arrives in time.
