I'm Not Saying

I haven't been alive since the dawn of the political age; in fact, I'm not even sure when the dawn of the political age would be on a time-line. There have probably always been politicians, at least as long as humans have existed. Certainly, they've been smaller in scale, and possibly less-well received, but they've probably been there. Since, as I mentioned, I wasn't there to see them, I can't speak to the vast universe of history. But politicians these days don't say anything.

I don't mean they never speak. That would be a blissful wonderland of silence. I mean that they never actually say anything, or very little. Listen to a politician answering questions some time. See how many they actually answer. Of those questions, see how many were important, say-something questions, and how many were obvious. How many were unavoidable? If the world explodes tomorrow, not answering a question about it would be hard, but it could still be done, and I bet the politicians would do it.

As I said at the start, I don't know whether this is a growing trend or simply something that politicians have always done. I'm not sure that it's not growing, possibly not from zero, but certainly becoming more and more common. Why? Because there are so many more people listening. Pretty soon, politicians will be in the public eye 24/7/365. This increased scrutiny, via the Internet and bloggers and good old-fashioned television, has some good points. It keeps them honest. But it also has at least one bad point: it keeps them from saying anything that could be interpreted as a decision. We are penalizing politicians for making any kind of statement of decision or purpose.

This isn't to say that politicians don't make gaffes. They do all the time. But look at what people jump on these days. It's not statements of policy. It's stupid, picayune stuff. The whole spectrum of political thought is guilty of this; we criticize politicians for speaking off-the-cuff, so their handlers restrict them more and more. You almost never get to hear a statement of purpose from a politician; the good ones can weasel out of a true/false question.

I don't think that means greater openness. I think it punishes honesty and integrity. I have more respect for someone who can state their mind and be wrong than for someone who never speaks at all. And the truly depressing thing is that we don't go after people who actually do lie or have improper opinions because we're too busy focusing on what a politician was saying between the lines. We have pundit after pundit interpret politicians, which distorts what little they do say. If politicians actually spoke candidly, not small talk but on issues that people care about, if they answered questions forthrightly, they would still be distorted because of our addiction to pundits. So the circle is unbroken and no one says anything.