“Anything that keeps a politician humble is healthy for democracy.”

Truly hell has frozen over and the Angels are skating on the ice. I actually agree with something said by Michael Kinsley!

Would that be things like Accountability? (what a novel concept)

A humble politician and a healthy democracy make an oxymoron in the extreme. A humble politician recognizes that law exists outside himself and all organized bodies of individuals thusly attempting to discover law and harmonize codes, regulations, rules, statutes, etc. there with. A democracy, by fundamental definition is a non-humble creator and executor of de facto rules called called law.

Mike you have a point but I'm still going to give it 4 stars for intent.

A perfectly healthy democracey is humility personified. It gives no room for a politician to be arrogant. If the issues of the day are voted upon by the citizens at large politicians are OUT of BUSSINESS! Mike is as usual totally missing the point.

Sadly Waffler history tells us that any democracy lives in stages. We're in the final stages now and we haven't seen a healthy democracy in....ever?

I think that most of us are missing something very important here. And probably even more dangerous. Our country is NOT a democracy by design. It is being subverted into one and further into an oligarchy. Article 4 section 4 of the US Constitution. We now have people who are not afraid of us in power and are wiping their shoes on our liberty, laughing at our patriots who love this country and mean to be in charge of us and our bodies. In a republic we may have humble politicians, but in a democracy, it is all about power, not liberty as we are witnessing today.

I am a bit more forgiving of the word 'democracy' than most who know that the Constitution forms a republican form of government. But we do have democratic parts to the government. How about "Anything that keeps a politician humble is healthy for the democratic process." I agree that not everything is up for vote, like our self-evident, natural born rights. Indeed a government that has no check against the tyranny of the majority (and those that lead them) is an oligarchy.