To All in the Professionally Angry, Easily Offended Club:

[gwojtowy]

GET OVER IT!



Can't you surmise that your President is human?

Well, in the immortal words of Steve Martin:

"Well excuuuuuuuuse Meeee!!!"

What do you want from the guy?



I know people expect him to have a halo and shoot thunderbolts from his butt; however, walking on water must be reserved for saving the economy, and not for role modelism.



Well, to the gist:

President Obama is trying to be an apostle for his formula for saving the nation. What did he talk about on Leno? Saving the economy. What did the media pick up? That he made an ill-advised joke that involved the Special Olympics! Again, in an interview for 60 Minutes, he was explaining his position on the economy, and how the job felt for him. What did the media pick up? That he "laughed" during the segment. A good journalist should sense exasperation in an interviewee's voice when he hears it!

The gene has not yet evolved that allows us to check our emotions at the door for our chosen careers.

As Presidents go, Obama's joke and giggle are not even in the pantheon of Presidential gaffes. He didn't give an overly long speech while ill-prepared for the cold January weather. Unlike William Henry Harrison, he made it past one month. He didn't challenge anyone to duels like Jackson. So far, there's no "Mah, mah, where's my pah!?" like with Grover Cleveland. He doesn't need Taft's bathtub, never parsed the word "sex" like Bill Clinton, and let me make this perfectly clear never argued with hippies on the White House lawn like Richard Nixon.

All of these examples of Presidential frailty became cause for ridicule, and yet they were inevitable because each President could only be the man he was. Kennedy was a womanizer, so was Clinton.

So far, Obama seems like a pretty stable person.

Not like his predecessor, W.

Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003

6. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" President George W. Bush, joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004

5. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

I'll be the first to say that the Special Olympics are no laughing matter. I'm for anything that promotes normalcy and respect for disabled people. For God's sake, they build special equipment like racing wheelchairs for paralyzed athletes!



However, while it is true that most causes people advocate are serious, and merit the attention of our hearts and consciences, I take great exception to the idea that in these dire times, there are still people who's egos are so fragile that they must be offended at every instance that a public official inadvertently forgets to mind the particular p or q stipulated to by the offended party.

Moreover, I really get irritated when 24-hour news networks feel it necessary to querulously bite their nails at every hem and haw of even the most inconsequential public figure.

Nice of people dedicated to noble causes and the overly cautious media to try to legislate human nature. King Canute tried something similar with the motion of the tides.


Here's where I get my Steve Martin on:

The dirty little secret is that human nature is far from pristine.

Unfortunately, we are prone to prejudices, stereotyping and their resulting restrictive or destructive behavior.

We may be learning to deal with prejudices that are destructive, but in the gray areas of stereotyping the disabled, almost all of us fail the test. We still consider the disabled as capable of less without assistance. In addition, we still set restrictions for safety. Let a blind cross the street with a dog or a cane? Sure! Let that person drive a car? Not where my little nieces are walking! Likewise with deaf people!

Was that a Neanderthal way of thinking? You bet! Cars or any other vital appliances can be modified to accommodate the safety needs of almost any disabled driver. Paraplegics can be allowed by some modification to compensate for a useless limb control the car like hand breaks.

Still, how does this knowledge change 150,000 years of emotional hardwiring?

It could just as well have been me there opposite Leno. And that's something the Politically Correct and the Professionally Angry set should remember.