We don't seem to cut each other much slack, anymore.
Oh, on the personal level, probably. The folks you work with, or your neighbor, or your spouse, yeah -- and if you find that you don't, then it suggests that maybe its time to quit, or move, or get out of the relationship. But at a national level, nope. Clinton makes an unfortunate remark, and people jump all over her. Obama gets the name of a Nazi death camp that a relative helped to liberate wrong, and people get all over him. Someone makes a mistake - someone you don't agree with - and its time to go nuclear.
Guys? People make mistakes. Even politicians. Its not always nefarious.
I'll grant that sometimes its no mistake. Sometimes, they were trying to get away with something. Nixon and Bush, at least, have shown us that there are politicians who need to be watched constantly, because they do try to get away with things. Perhaps Clinton is like that. Perhaps Obama is like that. I don't think so, for either, but I guess I can't rule it out. The House votes on a bill, overriding Bush's veto, and it turns out that the bill is missing a section. They have to scramble to figure out what to do, and the White House Press Secretary lets go with a snarky comment about screwing up. What, you folks never made a mistake? A rabid political opponent makes a fair point, and then goes on to make five more while he's on the subject (yeah, Keith, I'm talking about you) -- he doesn't want to stop before every drop of blood is milked? Why not?
Maybe I'm too forgiving. But jeez, you guys - lighten up. Back off. Use those knives you've always got at the ready, and cut each other some slack. And if someone cuts you slack? Appreciate it. Like these folks.
3 comments:
Couldn't agree more, I feel the media spends more time covering the forgettable slip-ups of politicians and other big names then they do actually covering real news.
What the heck is wrong with our country that we let people get away with this kind of nonsense?
/rant
The world is so big and scary, the vast majority of us can't handle it except through gross simplification, caricatures, and massive assumptions. Our feeling is, we have enough trouble handling our lives; we don't want to be asked the tough, or even moderately difficult, questions. Most of us would rather be on the sidelines.
As to letting people get away with it: I'm not sure that anyone does, in an active sense. We just don't complain loudly... and thats good enough for the people who pay the people who make the assumptions. Its why I read The Economist - which, in conjunction with the Sunday Times and WashPost, is my sole source of ongoing information. Yet I'm hardly pure on this, because I look at the Google news scooper all the time, too, for McInfoNuggets....
Immediately after writing that, I came across this.
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