Who are you calling a sell-out?

Awhile back, I wrote about Anthony Bourdain's criticism of Rocco DiSpirito for what some of Bourdain's fans called "selling out." (Anthony Bourdain: Hypocrite ... or Genius?). I asked a Bourdain fan, who (about a year after I wrote the piece) came to criticize DiSpirito and praise Bourdain, exactly how "sell-out" is defined. His answer is revealing.

...but at one point he [DiSpirito] was a serious chef making good food ..then he made the decision of saying i want to become a "star" and ill do anything i can do get there. but i wont do it through my food, ill do it through a marketing machine...

This, he said, qualifies DiSpirito as a sell-out.

I thought about this conversation again when Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania switched parties because, in his own words, he did not think he could win as a Republican.

I am unwilling to have my 29-year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate.

He also added, "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,"  but if that's the case I wonder why it took him so long to discover what the rest of the GOP has known for decades.

Like DiSpirito, Specter has been accused of being a sell-out. But also like DiSpirito, Specter simply made a calculated decision to do something that was in his own self-interests.

That alone doesn't make either of them a sell-out.

Even Specter's 2001 suggestion that representatives not be allowed to change parties between elections doesn't make him a sell-out. If you're tempted to call him one, it just means you have to better identify the principles that motivate him, not the principles that you think he should have.

Alan Keyes, the former Reagan diplomat, political candidate, and occasional contributor to WorldNetDaily, deftly points out the hypocrisy of Michael Steel, the RNC chairman, to denigrate Specter's action as entirely self-serving. [pargraph breaks added for readability]

Steele has no problem sacrificing principle in order to keep politicians like Specter in the GOP ranks. He sees them as the key to victory and he has made it clear that, as far as he's concerned, winning is the only thing that matters.

Unfortunately for him, Specter's switch is entirely consistent with that principle.

Specter has rightly concluded that Republican primary voters will reject him in 2010, as they would have in 2004 had it not been for the help he received from Rick Santorum and others who put party loyalty above their commitment to the nation's fundamental moral principles.

By running as a Democrat, Specter feels that he stands a better chance of winning the general election. As far as principle goes, the only difference between Specter and Steele is that Specter will now reach for victory while being true to his leftist views.

Meantime, the Michael Steele Republicans, as they fume over his desertion, further demonstrate their willingness to seek victory by betraying the party's supposed conservatism.

Similarly, DiSpirito's decision to sell something besides the food he personally cooks doesn't make him a sell-out. It just means that he is interested in doing something other than what some people (like Bordain) want him to do.

That's his freedom. That's his right. And certainly in DiSpirito's case, it's entirely harmless.

To be sure, no one on this earth always live up to the principles they say they hold dear, 100% of the time with 100% consistency. One can make a mistake with respect to those principles -- or a series of mistakes -- and not be a sell-out.

But be warned: If you disappoint or mislead people who mistakingly ascribe certain principles to you, you will sacrifice your own credibility with those people, and you may not recover from it.

It's risky to be transparent and authentic, but hopefully the risk will just motivate us to be a better people who can act, more often than not, consistently with principles we've promised we have. - Cam Beck

P.S. For a great piece on branding and authenticity, I suggest this letter from Mike Rowe of The Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs.