John Krehbiel
Satanic Verses, anyone?
by John Krehbiel on 22 February 2008
Remember The Satanic Verses? That novel by Salman Rushdie that no one in the Islamic world read, but everybody condemned? Well we now have an article in the New York Times about John McCain that everybody is talking about, but again, no one seems to have read.
The Times did not say that McCain had an affair. They said that he behaved in a way that might cause people to suspect he was having an affair. They claim that it is his own confidence in his integrity that caused him not to realize how things might have looked to others.
The whole article reminds me very much of a situation in my own life. I have never had an affair, and I’m sure I never will. On the other hand, for whatever reasons, I tend to make friends with women more readily than with men. I am not hostile to other men, and of course I have male friends, but I just find it easy to talk to women, and they to me.
I became very good friends with the instructor in my Speech class in college when I was getting my teaching degree. Dianne and I would talk after class; I would often go to her office with her on my way to my car. Her graduate adviser asked about me, my wife’s friends were suspicious (my wife knows better) but there was nothing going on.
From my reading of the Times article, that’s what they are saying was going on with McCain. Nothing. Everybody else should relax and actually read the article.
2008-02-22 » John Krehbiel
22 February 2008 @ 5:23 pm
The old “appearance of impropriety” problem.
It’s a huge issue in some church circles. You shouldn’t drink, you see, not because drinking is wrong, but because it might appear wrong to somebody. Make them stumble, you know, because everybody in the world takes their cues from watching you. And you shouldn’t watch PG-13 movies (or wherever they want to set the bar) because … other people might be offended. Etc.
“Mind your own business” doesn’t occur to most people.
26 February 2008 @ 8:58 am
Well, how things look isn’t a completely unimportant issue.
And a politician has to live with that.
I personally couldn’t tolerate the scrutiny. Can you imagine having everything you say taped, so that snippets of your misspeaks can turn into a description of your entire worth as a human being?
P_O_T_A_T_O_E
Need I say more?
26 February 2008 @ 9:14 am
I agree that appearances are important, especially for a politician. My issue is with the halfwits in the media who are ranting and raving about what the article didn’t say.
And “potatoe” is a fair estimation of the worth of some of them, IMHO.