|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
One present we can give each other is to be slow to judge and quick to recognize that the truth is often complicated.
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Issue
|
| Contributor | Imperator |
| Last Edited | Imperator Dec 21, 2010 05:48am |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Minority Perspective |
| Author | Matthew Dowd |
| News Date | Tuesday, December 21, 2010 11:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | As we gathered on a cold day at a small Catholic church near Flint, Mich., the words “drugs … overdose … death” kept swirling around in my head. The phrase “she was an addict” was knocking around in there, too, as though it was supposed to define my younger sister Kelly’s life. Kelly, the eighth of 11 siblings, died suddenly and tragically last month. She was buried the day before Thanksgiving in near-frozen Michigan dirt, leaving behind three young and beautiful children searching for answers and her family and friends groping for explanations.
When we were packing up her belongings from her rental house, my older brother Pat leaned into me and said, “Hey, Matt, you know they found a Christmas list, in the pocket of the pajamas she died in, of presents she wanted to buy her kids.”
In our political culture, it’s common—even encouraged—to default to the sound bite and quick headline to define each other and explain the world around us. It’s something that I, unfortunately, do very easily at times in political discussions. It’s something I used to be paid to do when I ran campaigns for Republicans as well as Democrats. The quick analysis, the succinct message point. Make it short, make it memorable, and make it stick. We now have politicians in both parties, not to mention pundits on cable news and advocacy platforms such as Fox News and MSNBC, who revel in the easy sound bite, no matter how trite, whether it’s about President Obama, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, or tea party activists.
Does this worship of the simple, the brief, and the direct get us any closer to the truth? Or does it take us further away from it? |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
