Playing The Blame Game
Forgive me but I should have mentioned I was going to at the Stanford Pain Management Center yesterday. While I have you here, I ought to let it be known I’ll be in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow through Sunday, then onto Monterey for freshman orientation Monday. The blog will should resume on Tuesday. Blame me if you like, but read on.
It is a microcosm of America that any discussion of the NBA Finals always reverts to blaming somebody. It was LeBron James’ fault that, while he was so great a player, his teams never won a championship. Now his team’s on the verge of closing out the Thunder and hoisting the NBA Championship trophy. So what did I hear today on ESPN? Stephen A. (tell it like it is even if it always isn’t) Smith and Skip (I love to be hated because if I didn’t, I’d be sad all the time) Bayless each say they’d lay the blame for the Thunder’s downfall on Kevin Durant.
My immediate thought was, “What would they be saying if the Thunder was up 3-1?” Oh yeah, back to LeBron.
That’s the new way of life in this country. When I listen to the most fervent conservatives, I hear how terrible a job the Obama administration has done. The Obama sucks! rhetoric outweighs the Romney’s the man! belief on a scale of about a zillion-to-one. It’s not “get our man in”, it’s “get the other guy out.” On the flip side, President Obama’s message is his programs are the right ones for America, it’s just that the conservatives won’t allow him to implement them. He mentions the millions of jobs his administration has created. So I guess unemployment could be even worse. But I imagine that he been asked prior to being elected what an acceptable -and realistic - unemployment rate would be during the last year of his first term, his answer would have been significantly lower.
The most absurd argument - and you can get passionate people from both sides to argue the point - is the reason for the national deficit. When George W. Bush took over, there was a surplus. When he left, there was a deficit. That was one of the arguments the Democrats made in seeking to get their candidate elected. So, their guy got in - and now there’s a much greater deficit. And the Republicans are livid!
Yet they weren’t nearly so upset when W was in office and we went from plus to minus. Now the worm’s turned and the Democrats seem to have amnesia when it comes to their complete and utter disdain for a president to take the country’s fortunes backward. As is usually the case, the massive outrage is made by an extremely small segment of society - on each side. Their (whichever’s) goal is to swing our way of thinking to their (negative) side. Do they think the rest (majority) of us are dupes? Never mind. Forget I asked that question.
“If it’s true that when everybody’s right, nobody’s wrong, doesn’t it stand to reason that if everybody’s wrong, nobody’s right?”