Stand by Me--for a Moment

By Roger Rosenblatt

What you mean "we"? --Attributed to Tonto

One of the more crowd-pleasing themes of the Clinton years has been the question of loyalty. Would Hillary stay loyal to Bill? (So far.) Would George Stephanopoulos? (No.) Would Monica have stayed loyal had Linda Tripp not been disloyal to her? (Probably.) Would Clinton himself remain loyal to anyone? (Sometimes.) These days the theme has spilled over into the primaries, where Gore has blamed Bradley for disloyalty to the Democratic Party in deserting the ship, and Bradley has accused Gore of blind loyalty to Clinton.

Among all the political players, one whose loyalty was always so certain that it gave the public a headache was strategist James Carville. He has just published a book on the subject--Stickin': The Case for Loyalty (Simon & Schuster; $16.95)--which consists of more dialect than thought but is useful as a reminder of both how attractive and impossible loyalty is.

Sooner or later, in big things or small, everybody betrays everybody--not necessarily out of malice, but because loyalty runs counter to what one laughingly calls normal human behavior. "Into what danger would you lead me, Cassius?" asks Brutus, who is, in fact, an honorable man yet is easily seduced to treason by an envious one. I can still hear George McGovern's avowal of fealty to his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, in the 1972 presidential campaign, after it was revealed that Eagleton had undergone electric-shock therapy. "I'm behind him 1,000%," said McGovern, a few days before dumping him.

I have always suspected that a bank with "Fidelity" in its title was going to lose my money. The mere assertion of loyalty is often enough to signal betrayal. One of the weaknesses of loyalty is that unlike friendship, it requires some outward demonstration or declaration, and so invites insincerity. It is also, by implication, unconditional, and suggests that though you do not agree with the person or institution to which you are expected to stick, you will do so anyway. All this practically guarantees treason.

How to spot someone who is likely to be disloyal: 1) anyone who feels underappreciated and makes a lot of noise about it. If Caesar had flattered Cassius once in a while, he'd be alive today. 2) anyone who feels inadequate in his or her position, high or low, and fears exposure. 3) anyone who writes a newspaper column. 4) anyone who wants to. 5) anyone who spends a good deal of time reading travel brochures or hanging out in a Mercedes-Benz showroom. 6) anyone whose name contains a vowel. 7) anyone else.

This is not to suggest that one ought to be disloyal promiscuously or without making an effort toward virtue. A reasonable definition of a virtuous person, in fact, might be one who knows the difference between noble and ignoble behavior and strives for the former while succumbing to the latter.

Yet as noble a standard as loyalty sets, there is simply too much fear, self-doubt, opportunism and ambition in our makeup to expect our frail species to adhere to it. How many loyal free-agent ball players can one name, or publishing executives, or authors? "I do" is a promise of loyalty that often lasts until the first Finnair hostess comes down the aisle. Carville notes that more people turn on Presidents than stick--though there are ways of doing both, as Peter Edelman of the Department of Health and Human Services proved when he waited for the passage of Clinton's welfare bill before resigning because he could not stomach it. He was acting out of principled thinking. But whatever one's reasons, total constancy to the ideal is unrealistic. A Few Good Men was about the potential inhumanity of too much Semper Fi. Even dogs, to whom we assign unswerving devotion, will, because they are dogs, bite the hands that feed them. (Semper Fido.)

So unachievable is the goal that it is usually the betrayals that make life interesting. (See John Dean and Nixon; David Stockman and Reagan; Judas and Jesus.) To be sure, there are people famous for loyalty, but they are often loyal to a fault, and a supposed virtue becomes pathetic, stupid, sometimes criminal. Rose Mary Woods entered history when she stood by her man's tape recorder. Hubert Humphrey probably lost the presidency when he stuck by Lyndon Johnson and his Vietnam policies. Then there was always Mrs. Odysseus.

To appreciate how crazy loyalty can get, recall Shoichi Yokoi, the World War II Japanese soldier who hid in the jungles of Guam for 27 years rather than surrender to U.S. forces. He had declared fidelity to Emperor Hirohito and had evidently meant it.

Of course, the worst manifestations occur when institutions or governments mandate it with phrases like "the national interest" (Kennedy kept journalists silent with that trick) or with loyalty oaths. During the McCarthy shame, graduate students were required to sign loyalty oaths when they applied for government grants. A dean at Harvard defended this practice as being merely pro forma--of no greater significance than licking the stamps on the application envelopes. At a faculty meeting, the great Italian scholar Renato Poggioli stood up and commented, "Mr. Dean, I am from Fascist Italy, and I will tell you something. First you licka the stamps, then you licka something else."

According to Polonius, the highest loyalty is to oneself, but it helps to remember that Polonius was an idiot. We are not even capable of being true to who we are, and many of us would be better off as someone else. Auden had it right in the poem "Lullaby": "Lay your sleeping head, my love/ Human on my faithless arm." Ah, humans.