Politics: Stop Crazy-Chasing and Start Hypocrite-Hunting
November 4, 2008 by MCBias
Happy Election Day, everyone. As we await the results of the election today, in what is most likely an Obama-Biden victory (congratulations to his supporters who comment here!), I have to finally get a post out that has been reverberating in my head for months. My passion is to address a severe problem destroying our ability to hold a national conversation on, well, anything. What’s worse is that so many blogs, which I have liked and participated in for so many years, are exacerbating the problem. I speak of Crazy-Chasing, and it’s become America’s political, religious, and athletic game of choice.
Now stop reading here if you don’t want to read anything frustrating or depressing today. I’m not here to ruin your party if you think your favorite politician of choice won and are celebrating already……(EDIT: Read something more optimistic instead, like Jordi’s well-written essay on the differences between liberals and conservatives and why he’s voting for Barack.)
Ok, for those of you still left, what is Crazy-Chasing, you may ask? It’s when Barack Obama is called to task for a few random clips of his pastor’s comments, nearly bereft of context. Yet those of us who are Christians know of a long Biblical tradition of calling out one’s nation for the sins it has committed against others. There was nothing particularly crazy about Jeremiah’s original comments. But it was too easy to brand Barack as the type who hung around with crazy friends like Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, via lazy smearing by association. (And speaking of Ayers, ah for those foregone traditional times when some of our most fearsome sources of domestic terrorism were wealthy or well-educated college kids like Bill Ayers or Patty Hearst. Amusing, isn’t it?) If having crazy friends was a crime, I think we all would be doing time! Yet the effort still goes on with desperation to find some crazy friend of Obama’s, or anyone who votes Democratic and can be shown to be idiotic. Trust me, McCain has had his share of crazy acquaintances as well (Keating, the disgraced Italian guy who used to date Hathaway, etc.)
And how about Crazy-Chasing by Democrats? Oh, there’s been plenty of that too, as ears perk up at each McCain/Palin rally to see if some racial epithet will be hurled at Barack from the crowd. Ah, if we can find a few certifiably racist people at a Republican rally, that will prove….what? That some crazy, mixed-up people vote Republican? Come on, that’s not news. I can find crazier people at many an NFL game. And I have a feeling some of those union members who vote Democrat may know their way around a racist slur or two.
Give me any political party, religion, or group and I’ll find something crazy about them. Even the local women’s knitting group probably has crazy Sarah, who insists on wearing her yarn sweaters in the summer and burying old sweaters in the yard when they’re too tattered to wear anymore. This is not news! There will always be a way to demonize a group (you know that if you’ve been reading this site’s coverage of the sports world). The answer is not to go crazy-hunting so you can match them sideshow freak for sideshow freak! But of course, it would be too much to ask that the populace could understand issues rather than raw emotion and knee-jerk moralism. And we could go over sports story after sports story of crazy chasing–Singletary’s pants; the rush to condemn Sean Taylor as if he had earned being gunned down in his home; Kimbo Slice; etc.
But you want to know who really bothers me on this Election Day? It’s all the hypocrites masquerading as moderates under our very noses. It’s the people who said Hilary looked ugly in her pantsuits (for the record, I thought they looked ok)…and then turn around and bash Palin for her expensive wardrobe. It’s those people who claim there’s something wrong about Michelle Obama, but get rather tongue-tied when asked to explain in detail what they don’t like. It’s the people who brag about voting for Barack, but who wouldn’t vote for a black acquaintance to be president of their fraternity or local Rotary chapter. There’s always some little thing they find lacking in that black acquaintance–if he’s loud, he lacks self-control, and if he’s quiet, he lacks charisma to lead. It’s the Christians who focus on the sins they don’t have problems with (abortion, homosexuality) instead of the ones they do (pride, gossip, lust). It’s the athletes who call themselves good people for not having been arrested…but who cheat on their wives relentlessly.
Those are the people we should be trying to change. Those are the people we should be calling out. Sure, it doesn’t have the glamor of criticizing some crazy in another state that you never met. I mean, those people work with me. They go to school with you and sit next to you in the bar. Take those people on? That would mean risk to myself! I might lose a few friends. I might shock a few people by saying that lying and cheating are not acceptable. No, I can’t do that! Better to slur people I never met in a blog instead, it’s much safer that way. (Seriously, go around to sports blogs and see how many of them throw out the word “crazy” in post titles as if it were going out of style). So, um, how about that crazy Mike Singletary? He’s a crazy dude! crazy!…or is it us who are the crazy ones for being more critical of bold yet possibly misguided actions rather than weak and duplicitous ways of life?
I know how folks feel about Mike S., but I ain’t droppin’ my drawers in a room full of men to prove a point. That’s why I have a tongue and the gift of speech. Now, if someone ever manages to cut it out, and chop off my hands, then we might be on to something — but then again, how I would ever pull down my pants without hands.
I just can’t see a place for that one. I wouldn’t call Mike crazy — except in a complimentary sense. He’s a Middle Linebacker by trade and a HOFer by lineage.
I won’t call it “A Shining Moment.” I might call it “A Moon-Shining Moment.”
I got your Amen, right here. Well said.
McBias
Well done.
But, I would add that the main reason why folks were hunting for racists at the McCain/Palin rallies was because it was obvious they and the Republican party were appealing to people’s most base instincts blatantly and then pretending to be surprised at the response. There is a problem with false equivalency by comparing what happened to Obama with Wright and Ayers to what happened at the rallies.
Bias, I think that some people will always scramble to justify their positions by seizing on outliers. I hope that those people will not be in the majority in the future.
Nice article.
Yes, well done MC and cosign Big Man’s distinction.
i think we all do a whole lot of “hypocryte-hunting” over at SOMM. The frustrating part is always that people don’t pay any attention to the problem until a crazy caricature like say, John Rocker. And that is the unfortunate thing… the depth of racism espoused by ESPN through everyday practice is so much more damaging than Rocker’s words. Yet too many people still can’t get on board with it until a videotape is unearthed with ESPN execs attending a Klan rally…
T3-LOL
Great article Mcbias. Big man/Modi I couldn’t agree more.
Fair points on the equivalency of the incidents, BM/Modi/Origin. One was a smear on the candidate, while the other was a smear on another candidate’s followers, true. Both examples perfectly filled out what I was looking for–either the suspicion that some public figure is “crazy” or does “crazy things” or that the yokel down the street from you is crazy.
BM, cosign on those people not being in authority any time soon. In chasing crazies, often innocent people get hurt. A nation must be very careful of getting in the crazy-hunting business.
MODI, it’s a delicate balance here on SOMM–we must unearth a few crazies to make our point, but if that’s all we ever do, we begin losing credibility and sounding like unhinged conspiracy theorists. One of the amusing things about crazy-hunting (or sad, really) is that even if the people you are accusing are crazy, pursuing them too hard makes people wonder if you’re making it up or have a vendetta!
Here at SOMM, sometimes we point out examples of hypocrisy, and other times we point out blatant wrong-doing. Both have to go hand-in-hand, and quite honestly I think hypocrite-hunting has more potential for true change. (The crazies will always be crazies, in my book). But there’s certainly room for a multitude of opinions on that, don’t take my word for it at all! I think SOMM offers a decent mix in our writing of who we go after and how we do it.