Before you abuse, criticize & accuse (& send a nasty e-mail), walk a mile in my shoes. - Something for all Americans to pause & think about.
Yesterday's column by one of my favorite newspaper columnists has a good message, not only for this Christmas season, but all of the year. It reminded me of one my early posts of 08-14-04 entitled "The citizen-politician - Gone the way of the Oldsmobile?"
The primary subject of such early post was the movie classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington that premiered in 1939 starring James Stewart. As noted in such early post:
"This classic argues that the average man, decent of heart and pure in his intentions, was the best sort of public servant. It is a logical myth for a democracy to cling to: The Republic's salvation can be found in the people's wisdom."
For reasons I cannot articulate, and maybe just because at heart I am an optimist, this movie classic and the following comment I wrote in the earlier post came to mind when I read the column noted below:
"We love to hate 'professional politicians,' but like it or not, politics is a profession. Even the attributes of the political class that we claim to despise are, more often than not, virtues. We sometimes recoil at Bill Clinton's cool and LBJ's cunning, but how else are competing interests brought to consensus?"
Excerpts from a column entitled:
Caricature References
By Richard Cohen
The Washington Post
December 23, 2004
Public figures, especially government officials, somehow get turned into caricatures -- not real people but virtual cardboard cutouts, complete with labels: liberal, conservative, red, blue, pro-life, pro-choice, as if life itself were one of those TV shows where you have to be one thing or another, never a bit of both. When, for instance, I wrote a column suggesting that Bernard Kerik was a bad choice for secretary of homeland security, I got a bucket full of obscene e-mails right in my face. I was denounced over and over again as a liberal who, moreover, never would have written something similar about anyone Bill Clinton had named. This would be news to Clinton.
What struck me about the e-mails was how none of these writers paid any attention to what I had to say. Instead, they preferred to deal with a caricature -- someone who belonged to a movement, a conspiracy, and was taking orders in the service of some vast, nefarious cause. E-mails are the drive-by shootings of the common man. The face of the victim is never seen.
Talk radio is similar. The invective, the simplicities, the need for controversy and the us-against-them nature of the format are downright dehumanizing. No one is ever merely mistaken but rather is "wrong" in a moral sort of way -- a flawed human being at best, downright evil at worst. It's all nonsense, of course. We have become a nation of B-52 bombers, hitting targets we never see. Even the after-hours camaraderie of Washington is gone. Republicans hang with Republicans, Democrats with Democrats -- and they all get out of town as fast as possible. A little bourbon would do wonders for our dysfunctional government.
Like Will Rogers, I (almost) never met a man I didn't like -- and after that, honest, rigorous criticism becomes very hard indeed. It is easier by far to turn government officials from conscientious public servants, or even just hapless human beings, into mere celebrities. But they don't make big money in their jobs (though some, of course, do later on), and they almost always work very hard. And when they screw up it often appears on the front pages of newspapers or on the nightly news. Sometimes, when things are dark and people are dying, they sit before the TV and watch what they have done -- and cry. They do, and I know this for a fact.
The year is ending, and this is my final column of 2004. I have taken my share of potshots and dealt in caricatures -- and I am sorry for that. Mostly, though, I try to keep in mind that the people who run the government, even the ones I oppose, are not evil or malicious and are just trying to do a difficult job. I take nothing back and vow to be even tougher in the coming year, but in the meantime, and in the spirit of the season, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year . . . .
The primary subject of such early post was the movie classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington that premiered in 1939 starring James Stewart. As noted in such early post:
"This classic argues that the average man, decent of heart and pure in his intentions, was the best sort of public servant. It is a logical myth for a democracy to cling to: The Republic's salvation can be found in the people's wisdom."
For reasons I cannot articulate, and maybe just because at heart I am an optimist, this movie classic and the following comment I wrote in the earlier post came to mind when I read the column noted below:
"We love to hate 'professional politicians,' but like it or not, politics is a profession. Even the attributes of the political class that we claim to despise are, more often than not, virtues. We sometimes recoil at Bill Clinton's cool and LBJ's cunning, but how else are competing interests brought to consensus?"
Excerpts from a column entitled:
Caricature References
By Richard Cohen
The Washington Post
December 23, 2004
Public figures, especially government officials, somehow get turned into caricatures -- not real people but virtual cardboard cutouts, complete with labels: liberal, conservative, red, blue, pro-life, pro-choice, as if life itself were one of those TV shows where you have to be one thing or another, never a bit of both. When, for instance, I wrote a column suggesting that Bernard Kerik was a bad choice for secretary of homeland security, I got a bucket full of obscene e-mails right in my face. I was denounced over and over again as a liberal who, moreover, never would have written something similar about anyone Bill Clinton had named. This would be news to Clinton.
What struck me about the e-mails was how none of these writers paid any attention to what I had to say. Instead, they preferred to deal with a caricature -- someone who belonged to a movement, a conspiracy, and was taking orders in the service of some vast, nefarious cause. E-mails are the drive-by shootings of the common man. The face of the victim is never seen.
Talk radio is similar. The invective, the simplicities, the need for controversy and the us-against-them nature of the format are downright dehumanizing. No one is ever merely mistaken but rather is "wrong" in a moral sort of way -- a flawed human being at best, downright evil at worst. It's all nonsense, of course. We have become a nation of B-52 bombers, hitting targets we never see. Even the after-hours camaraderie of Washington is gone. Republicans hang with Republicans, Democrats with Democrats -- and they all get out of town as fast as possible. A little bourbon would do wonders for our dysfunctional government.
Like Will Rogers, I (almost) never met a man I didn't like -- and after that, honest, rigorous criticism becomes very hard indeed. It is easier by far to turn government officials from conscientious public servants, or even just hapless human beings, into mere celebrities. But they don't make big money in their jobs (though some, of course, do later on), and they almost always work very hard. And when they screw up it often appears on the front pages of newspapers or on the nightly news. Sometimes, when things are dark and people are dying, they sit before the TV and watch what they have done -- and cry. They do, and I know this for a fact.
The year is ending, and this is my final column of 2004. I have taken my share of potshots and dealt in caricatures -- and I am sorry for that. Mostly, though, I try to keep in mind that the people who run the government, even the ones I oppose, are not evil or malicious and are just trying to do a difficult job. I take nothing back and vow to be even tougher in the coming year, but in the meantime, and in the spirit of the season, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year . . . .
posted by Sid Cottingham | 2:07 PM
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