Should politicians be honest?

Gideon Rachman has some interesting thoughts today on Samantha Power’s Friday flameout. In case Spitzermania has clouded your memory, here’s a brief refresher: Power, a garrulous foreign-policy advisor to Barack Obama who was touring the UK to promote her book, called Hillary Clinton a "monster" and told the BBC — in a far more damaging "gaffe" — that withdrawing from Iraq in 16 months is a "best-case scenario." She apologized for her intemperate remarks about Clinton and promptly quit the Obama campaign. Anyway, here’s Rachman:

The Clinton campaign is much more disciplined. But its foreign policy people are also perfectly aware that Mrs Clinton is committed to politically expedient positions that might prove less than ideal once she was in office. A Clinton adviser told me earlier this year that all the leading Democratic candidates had “pretty terrible” positions on trade – by which he meant that they were too protectionist. When I suggested that similar taboos and double-talk applied to Middle East policy, he just shrugged and laughed. That subject was – apparently – too controversial even to touch.

Rachman then contemplates what would happen if such private conversations became public:

In an ideal world, politicians and their advisers would be able to talk openly about their real thoughts on trade or Iraq – and admit to doubts or disagreements. That would be an adult way to conduct debates. But it would also be politically impossible.

In the real world, “off the record” is the next best thing. If this journalistic convention were simply abolished, political debate would become even more cautious, simplistic and dishonest. Everybody would suffer. People involved in politics would not be able to test and discuss their ideas with anyone outside a closed circle of political loyalists. And journalists and the public would be even less well informed about the real thinking of politicians.

Rachman is right about what would happen if politicians were perfectly candid, but doublespeak is no way to educate the public either. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton delude Ohio voters into believing they can bring back lost manufacturing jobs by beefing up the labor and environmental provisions of NAFTA. They make promises about withdrawing from Iraq that they are unlikely to keep if elected. John McCain tries to have it both ways on waterboarding and immigration, calls for an illusory "victory" in Iraq, and boldly takes on small-ball "pork" projects while ignoring the United States’ real long-term fiscal problems — which, by the way, were greatly exacerbated by Iraq. This is not a healthy situation, and whispering to well-connected pundits that you know the real deal doesn’t help.