I fear my extended family is a microcosm of the political distrust and antagonism our country is facing today. I will try to present this without bias, but as I clearly represent one side of the political spectrum, I am sure that some of family members will vociferously denounce my objectivity. Fortunately, the most vocal of all, also has huge privacy hang-ups so is quite unlikely to leave comments in all caps following this blog. So we can keep our ranting and ravings confined to the holiday dinner table and the more and more infrequent phone calls.
The right-leaning among us watch Fox news and expound upon its objectivity. The left-leaning among us listen to NPR and say it presents news impartially.
“Well then”, the rightist replies, “you should listen to what Juan Williams had to say on Fox after he was fired, have you heard?”
”No, because I don’t watch Fox news,” the liberal retorts, “and clearly anyone who has just been fired is going to be angry at his former employer and not present unbiased facts.”
“Ah ha,” says the radical right, “you can’t make that judgment without watching his commentary, because he only presented facts!”
“Yes, but did he present ALL the facts?” the leftist responds. ”It’s easy to leave some facts out which in and of itself is bias. He could easily have presented only the facts that showed NPR to be in the wrong and Fox to be in the right.”
“Facts are facts. Listen to what he said and you’ll hear how biased NPR is.”
How did we get here, I wonder to myself. I thought we were talking about our children’s high school classes. I ponder the trip we took, let’s see, from high school classes, to leveling among students, to government being involved in education, to Carter creating the Department of Education, to Obama being a radical socialist, to Bush spending billions on a needless war in Iraq, to Clinton leaving office with a surplus to Reagan getting America on the right track and building a robust economy. Not sure how Juan Williams came up, other than the obvious that he’s currently in the news.
I sigh. “Well you are still welcome for dinner Saturday.”
“You sure?” my brother responds, “you can take back the invitation.”
“No, no, I’d like to see you. Let’s just not talk politics.”
Unfortunately, in the state houses across the country as in Washington D.C., they have nothing else to discuss, but politics. And as in my political discussion with my brother, no one is willing to compromise, no one is willing to bend, no one is even able to cede one point to their adversary. Those in office must internalize significant stress daily if they feel anything like I do after hanging up the phone. In the time we spoke, no, make that argued, no one, not me, not my brother, not any elected official has done one thing to make the world a better place, to bring enlightenment, even simply to extend an olive branch. Maybe my brother will get the hint if I serve olives with dinner. Oh wait, he hates olives. Therein lies the problem.
