By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
I adore mysteries and enigmas. I dote on picture puzzles, a guilty pleasure, infrequently indulged, and a nice diversion when trapped by a mantle of winter snow. We haven’t had but a day or two of snow this season, but with politics as they are, I haven’t missed it this year. I suspect that my talent for unearthing the hidden extends to ferreting out the connective tissue in any argument and is complements of my Scorpio Venus conjunct the midheaven, quietly searching out the dark corners. Given the amount of time I spend scouring the news for the missing pieces, jumping two or three moves ahead of any given situation to investigate the possibilities, you’d think that I’d play a good game of chess, but I don’t. I’m not very competitive. Basically, I’m just driven to fill in the blanks, round out the big picture and figure out where we are on the bell curve. That means I’m very busy these days, rooting around in the flailing psyche of a young nation’s business.
There are some signs of progress. The media, responding to public pressure, is getting better at telling the truth, have you noticed? Television anchors are asking harder questions, demanding actual rationales for some of the more egregious statements made by politicos. Back when there were established boundaries for politicians, well before the Orwellian double-speak practiced by the Bushies became kosher, it was seldom necessary to take the offensive position, anticipating either a stonewall or a confrontation. Back in the day, everyone expected a politician to fudge a bit, skew to his party’s world view and defend his talking points, but this actual lying-out-loud business took us all by surprise.
Then along came Dubby, and by the time we shook off our stupor and became aware that confrontation was vital, nuanced liberal thought fell prey to the sound bite. Sadly, liberals aren’t well-designed for this kind of winner-take-all knife fight; they’re better with twelve rounds and a referee. People who see life in shades of gray are more civil in their speech, more generous in deliberations and less critical of faults than their black ‘n white counterparts. That has made liberals the likely target of a sucker punch from the beginning of time, and traditionally too slow on the up-take, but lately the facts have proven so overwhelmingly contrary to the Republican-approved story line, there’s no way to let the record go uncorrected. At this point in history, any reporters not prepared for confrontation are failing the public (but perhaps not their employers, who haven’t welcomed facts over profit in a couple of decades; if confrontation draws ratings, truth will out, she said, cynically).