Published Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:31 PM
Updated Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:31 PM
On a personal level, I have managed to sleep through two tornados and one minor earthquake. I think I remember waking up briefly one morning to the worst thunderstorm I had ever seen. I sort of glanced at the window, bleary eyed and delirious, and realized there was no point in going anywhere in such weather, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Then there was that random morning, back during my senior year in college, when I woke up to an insistently ringing phone.
“What,” I sort of half-growled-half gurgled.
“Man, are you watching TV?” asked one of my fraternity brothers, obviously up way too early – it was barely noon.
“No, I’m watching the inside of my eyelids. Why?”
Then that reply, chilling, horrifying to the point of believing it to be just another bad joke.
“The space shuttle just blew up.”
About 25 years later, another incredible moment was unfolding as I slept off a late town council meeting. I would stroll into the office about 10:30 a.m., only to find the atmosphere heavy and electric, the same way the air feels just before a hurricane hits.
September 11, 2001. I can still see those images, those awful, unbelievable images, and wondering how much time we had before the world would be engulfed in nuclear holocaust, or worse. I remember wanting to be the guy who found Bin Laden, fantasizing about inflicting all manner of extremely painful and horrific revenges on his person.
I remember grieving with the rest of the nation, attending memorial services, writing stories and columns, even collaborating on one of the greatest songs ever written that you’ve never heard of.
Then I remember thinking, okay, if any good whatsoever comes from this, it will be that it unites my country at last. No more will there be these histrionic, polarized, my-way-or-die ideological camps. We will finally stand together as a nation again.
Eight years later, for once I’m awake, and I’m watching in almost comic astonishment as an obscure, second-string congressman from my home state, a guy definitely not elected because of an endorsement from MENSA, clearly demonstrate what disgusts me about the state of affairs today. It’s just a case of yet another ignoramus blathering uninformed, raw emotion.
One might as well send Morton Downey Jr. to Congress.
Don’t get me wrong, folks. This healthcare reform package concerns me greatly, if for no other reason than no one seems to have read the thing. Worse, no one seems to have taken into account the idea that for-profit hospitals and insurance companies and trial lawyers seem to be the only points of reference for the debate. Everything seems to revolve around a few hot flash bullet points.
Also understand that I believe it is our patriotic duty to question the powers that be, to resist following whatever Judas Goat du Jour into another box canyon without an exit. Mr. Wilson was not necessarily wrong to feel – or even express – anger at a point he believed to be inaccurate. His mistakes were timing, presentation, and misinformation.
But I hope these folks do a little more dissection of this proposal. We’ve been fed too many empty – and expensive – promises before.
“Four legs good; two legs bad,” is no mantra any of us should be bleating.