October 16, 2008

For the sin which we have committed before You through speech.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by causeless hatred.

That’s from the Al Het, the confessional “formula” we recite on Yom Kippur. Like all formulas, the Al Het has become so familiar that its meaning, and its impact, can be overlooked.

That’s what was so striking about an announcement by Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, after a day of Yom Kippur fasting and prayer, that he would desist from running negative campaign ads targeting his Democratic challenger, the writer and comic (and fellow Jew) Al Franken. Coleman called Yom Kippur a “time of fasting, soul-searching, and refocusing on your life.” He told reporters that he was suspending negative political advertising because “I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of the voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want voters to vote for me and not against the other folks.”

Cynical observers, and Franken’s camp, suggested Coleman’s announcement was a publicity ploy by an incumbent who has been slipping in the polls. And while both ran bitter campaigns, surveys suggested that Coleman’s negative ads were considered more unfair and more personal than Franken’s.

But we’ll take Sen. Coleman at his word, and consider his announcement a much-needed corrective to the current, poisonous political environment — not to mention a confirmation of the relevance of Jewish wisdom.

We’d also like to see some atonement by the presidential campaign staffs who have allowed rhetoric to run ahead of fairness and decency. To be sure, politics ain’t beanbag, and the passions and rhetoric surrounding this presidential campaign have been intense on both sides. In fact, few can remember a presidential race in which the stakes, and emotions, have seemed so high.

That is all the more reason why restraint is needed, among the partisans who come out for the candidates and the candidates themselves. It’s not too late for the campaigns to pull back from the brink and prove their candidates the decent, honorable public servants we know them to be.

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