George Osborne, Britain’s longtime Chancellor of the Exchequer until the fall of the Cameron government, seems to have raised some eyebrows recently with his announcement that, beginning in May, he will become editor of the [London] Evening Standard. And keep his seat in the House of Commons.
To be sure, most of the risen eyebrows belong to opposition Labour members, and Britain does have a tradition of members of Parliament keeping their day jobs—whether as bankers or barristers or novelists or trade union officials. But what struck me about Osborne’s case was not so much the vocation involved—the House of Commons is full of people who might be described as “journalists,” including the incumbent Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson—but the newspaper itself. The Evening Standard (no relation to THE WEEKLY STANDARD) is an old sheet and successful business enterprise; but it’s also a free tabloid, now largely owned by a Russian investor whose father was a senior KGB official.
I cannot offhand think of any comparable examples. David Lloyd George is said to have aspired to own a newspaper after he ceased being prime minister in 1922—which led the historian A.J.P. Taylor once to observe that it’s usually newspaper proprietors who yearn to be prime minister, not the other way around. William Deedes, editor of the Daily Telegraph, was a longtime member of Parliament and junior cabinet minister in Harold Macmillan’s government. Iain MacLeod, Chancellor in Edward Heath’s government until his untimely death, had been editor of The Spectator between ministerial appointments. But the Daily Telegraph is a very different institution from the Evening Standard, and The Spectator is a journal of opinion, not a daily newspaper.
I should explain, at this juncture, that the British have a much more relaxed attitude than we have about such things. If the people who elected George Osborne to the House of Commons are uncomfortable with his editorship of the Evening Standard, then it is up to them—not some ethics commission or braying editorial board—to do something about it. Relaxed, and enlightened, too: Osborne, at 45, is not exactly at the tail end of his working life, and there is something to be said for a lawmaking body composed of something other than lawyers. At any rate, the political and professional objectivity of journalists is largely mythology; why pretend otherwise?
This does, however, speak to an interesting American problem. There is much speculation, at the moment, about what Barack Obama intends to do for the balance of his earthly existence. In modern times, living ex-commanders in chief have tended to preside over the establishment of their presidential libraries—those vast federally-funded mausoleum/archives with gift shops—and then content themselves with good works (Carter, Bush II), reputation rehab (Johnson, Nixon), leisurely retirement (Truman, Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan, Bush I), or collecting speaker’s fees (Clinton).
Obama seems not yet to have arrived at a decision. He has been comparatively indifferent to his library, but seems acutely aware that the Democratic party is essentially leaderless. He is the first president since Woodrow Wilson to continue residing in Washington—ostensibly because his younger daughter is still in high school but probably because he wants to remain active in politics—and, breaking precedent, has already issued public statements about his successor. Moreover, at 55 years of age, he might very well survive his own presidency by four decades, and beyond.
Yet we have, in America, a curiously monarchical attitude toward post-White House employment. Those ex-presidents who have actually taken up another career (Quincy Adams in Congress, Taft teaching constitutional law, later serving as Chief Justice) are the exception, not the rule. It is considered unseemly to engage in commerce—or partisan politics, for that matter—and obvious executive appointments, even directorships, are similarly taboo. Former presidents are expected to hover decorously overhead, like guardian angels of the republic, deploying their skills and experience to occasional effect. But why? The presidency of a foundation, or a university, even a think tank, would be an obvious sinecure for someone like Obama. So, too, would public office or academia or the judiciary—or journalism, if he were so inclined.
Why not? The fact that Britain’s most recent Chancellor of the Exchequer not only sits in the back benches of the House of Commons, but edits London’s dominant newspaper, makes life in the capital more, not less, interesting—especially for George Osborne. Barack Obama should consider breaking another mold.
