By Ezra Klein
I've heard some talk on cable news of giving congressmen security details and using rope lines and so forth at events. I hope we don't end up going there, for the very reasons Jon Bernstein lays out:
American democracy has thousands and thousands of politicians, all of whom, collectively, are overvillified and undercelebrated. Alas, that's unlikely to change. What we can hope also won't change, however, is the very ordinariness of our politicians outside of the presidency, the way they can go about their lives as ordinary citizens, meeting with their fellow citizens and neighbors not just in great democratic events like the one interrupted in Tuscon, but in casual encounters, too.
I don't want to minimize the awful tragedy in Tucson. But the reality is that violent attacks on legislators are very rare. The last congressman killed while doing his job was Rep. Leo Ryan, who was slain in Jonestown in 1978. Indeed, as you can see from this Congressional Research Service report listing every member of Congress who has died from non-natural causes while still in office, political assassinations are very, very rare in this country. And there's no reason, at least as of yet, to think they're going to become more common in the years to come.
There's going to be a desire to do something in the coming days, to respond somehow. And we need to take care to make sure our response pushes us in the right direction. A simple principle, I think, is that whatever we do should emphasize our commitment to the sort of everyday democracy that Rep. Giffords and her constituents were practicing. As I said yesterday, I think one way to pay tribute to those who died or were harmed in the shooting is to do as they did and attend your congressperson's next community meeting. Conversely, making community meetings more difficult and politicians more physically distant from their constituents would be giving something important away, and it's not clear that we'd gain any real safety or security in return.
By Ezra Klein | January 9, 2011; 3:40 PM ET
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