Wednesday, September 28, 2011

CBC's petty politics and the need to "Press On"

Rep. Maxine Waters
(photo credit: Neon Tommy via photopin cc)
It seemed as though the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Maxine Waters, rushed to the nearest television camera she could find. What was so important? Apparently, Ms. Waters was concerned about the use of "curious" language.



Of course, the story does not end there - though, perhaps Ms. Waters and the CBC could have saved face if it did. For at least then it would have been possible for the casual viewer to mistake Ms. Waters' campaign against "curious" language as a pushback against something a little more important than bedroom slippers - yes . . . bedroom slippers. The slippers discussion was made during an MSNBC interview (here), but you can see the video of Representative Waters' CBS interview, here.

If Ms. Waters ended her thought at some nebulous precaution against "curious" language, perhaps a person watching his or her morning news program would have assumed she was speaking out against the "curious" words of the Republican presidential candidates. A viewer might have thought she was speaking of a GOP hopeful who seems comfortable with letting a man die for lack of health insurance, or even the "curious" behavior of a partisan GOP debate crowd that cheers executions and boos a member of our armed forces who happens to be gay.

Unfortunately, for Ms. Waters and the CBC, there's a long list of worthier topics to be concerned with before even beginning to think about the how the president chose to deliver his address last Saturday. If Ms. Waters' penchant for finding the microphone resulted in more talk about the American Jobs Act and less scrutiny over every syllable of President Obama's speech, maybe her recent television campaign would not have proven so petty.

But, make no mistake about it, this contrived debate over bedroom slippers and the president's alleged tone at a CBC event is just that . . . petty.

Read more >>

0 comments:

Post a Comment