"Safe!", calls the umpire. It's a close call, with the crucial details shrouded in a puff of dust, and immediately the spectators are on their feet yelling, half to cheer the umpire's decision and half to jeer it. What I find interesting is that, if I pluck a fan from the stands at random, I need to know only one thing about that person to be able to predict whether they are cheering or jeering. I don't need to know how good their eyesight is or whether they are using binoculars. I don't need to know where they are sitting in the stands -- how close they are to the base where the play occurred or what their angle of view is. I don't even need to know if they were actually paying close attention when the runner slid in. All I need to know is the person's team affiliation. The person will never say "I want my side to win, so I think the umpire should have given the benefit of the doubt preferentially to my team." No indeed. That wouldn't be fair at all. We play by the rules. Instead, the person will claim that they saw the play and the runner was safe or, if they're on the other side, that they saw the play and the runner was out. They will sincerely believe that, whichever event they report, that's what they actually saw.

In November of 2000, if I plucked a voter at random from the ranks of the two major political parties in the U.S., I needed to know only one thing about that person to be able to predict whether they sincerely believed that the only good, fair, and American thing to do was to make sure all the votes were counted, or whether the only just, true, and patriotic thing to do was to let the duly constituted process take its course. And you know what that one thing was. It would have been hard to find a Democrat willing to say "Gore is losing, and the only chance we have to win is if there's a recount." And it would have been equally hard to find a Republican willing to say "Bush is winning, and if we allow a recount, there's always the chance that he might loose." No indeed. We're a country of laws, we play by the rules, and we do what's right. It's just that what we perceive to be the rules, what we perceive to be right, is influenced more than a little by what team we're on. You can feel perfectly secure betting every dollar you have that, had the situations been reversed, the two political parties would have been making exactly the opposite arguments that they in fact made, and that their adherents would have just as strongly believed those arguments. Instead of ridiculing the absurdities of hanging chads, Rush Limbaugh would have been ridiculing the idea that you could hold an election and not actually make an effort to count all the votes.

I think that this is a tendency embedded deeply in human nature. Almost unconsciously, we overlook, downplay, or deny facts that run counter to our own best interests. And this tendency is compounded by membership in a group, where there's often a leader declaring what the accepted facts are, and there's a desire in each member to be accepted by the group and thus to share the official views of the group. Throw in a little complexity or ambiguity, and it's very easy to slide unconsciously into thinking that we hold a view because it is right, and not because it is to our advantage.

Call me cynical, but I think the leaders of both political parties understood this very well during the 2000 election. I think that they very carefully and consciously devised palatable and fair-sounding arguments for why there should or should not have been a recount, and used those arguments to attempt to sway public opinion in general to their side, and to ensure the confident and trusting support of their partisans. But the presidency was at stake, it was all about power, and I don't believe for a moment that the leaders of either party really cared deeply about what the "right thing to do" was. They cared only about winning.

In fact, I think that politicians use this principle nearly all the time. Whenever they propose some initiative, they always supply a stated reason for it that has to do with the good of the country, fairness, securing the future for our children, or whatever will sound appealing to the electorate and will help them to deflect the opposition of the other party. But the real reason for the initiative often has to do simply with preserving or expanding power, often by rewarding the party's constituents or major donors.

Let me give an example. I certainly believe that all politicians -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein -- employ this same tactic, but I have to pick on someone in particular in an example so, since the environment is a hot button of mine, I'm going to pick on the Republican plan to drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Now the stated reason for drilling in ANWR is to "Reduce dependency on foreign oil." That's a laudable goal, and I myself certainly support reducing dependency on foreign oil. Who could oppose it? In these days of likely war in the Middle East (and when are there ever days when war in the Middle East seems unlikely?), becoming less dependent on foreign oil seems like an urgent matter of national security and provides an argument that may be sufficiently compelling to overcome our general reluctance to sully one of the last great wilderness areas left in North America. The sad thing is that it's a lie that drilling for oil in ANWR would make us less dependent on foreign oil to any meaningful extent, and the politicians putting it forth as a justification are more than smart enough to know that it's a lie. First, most geologists don't think there's very much oil in the area. Second, it would be 6 to 10 years before the oil fields there would be producing at a useful capacity, whereas conservation could produce greater benefits sooner. But third and most importantly, the vast bulk of the world's oil reserves are outside the U.S. and no amount of drilling anywhere in the U.S. will ever change that or will ever make us less dependent on foreign oil sources as long as we're dependent on oil. Clearly, the only real way to become less dependent on foreign oil is to become less dependent on oil.

So, why the push to drill in ANWR when it won't really make us less dependent on foreign oil? It's no secret that we have an oil patch administration. The oil companies have been big supporters of Bush/Cheney and of the Republican party in general. Bluntly put, the oil companies stand to profit from drilling in ANWR, and this is the reward for their support. More specifically, the oil services companies -- those who provide drilling and exploration equipment -- stand to profit first, companies like Halliburton, for example, whose stock price has been in a slump recently, and whose CEO was none other than Dick Cheney before he became Vice President.

What do I conclude from this? Are the Republicans evil? Are all politicians evil? I don't think so. I think that we're all behaving the way humans behave, given the incentives that exist in our system. But being aware of how we think and behave can help to make us wiser voters. I for one try to be skeptical of my own opinions. Are they really my opinions, arrived at by seeking the facts and making an informed judgment? Or are they merely the opinions that my favorite politicians want me to have so that they'll garner my vote and thus be able to reward their donors and keep their party in power? (Of course, sometimes I want precisely that outcome.) And I try to be very skeptical of the stated reasons that politicians give for the initiatives they propose. I try to look at who would benefit from the initiatives. The adage "Follow the money" certainly applies.

There are occasional politicians who rise above our system of money and influence to do work that really does benefit the country. We call these people statesmen. But I don't expect very many politicians to rise to that level. And, although I do see room for improvement, I don't expect campaign finance reform and other such measures to make a huge difference in the way things work in the U.S. The wealthy will always find ways to use their money to influence the political process. We'll probably continue to play the game much as we've been playing it for so long. But I think it's helpful, at least, to realize what game it is we're playing. Let's not pretend that politics is merely about doing the right thing. It's all about power, ladies and gentleman, all about power.