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If you have nothing nice to say …
By Paul | March 18, 2009
If you have nothing nice to say …
by Sandra Zummo, a a columnist for the Staten Island Advance. (Advance News Service) Copyright www.cleveland.com
Will everybody please just stop talking!
Not you.
All those pundits, talking heads, hired (tired) guns and assorted fear-mongers filling the radio and TV airwaves 24/7 with doom and gloom. And that goes for Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, the Religious Right, atheists, agnostics, those who watch “Dancing With The Stars” and those who don’t.
Yes, we know the economy is a mess, that people are losing their jobs and homes at a frightening rate, that something has to be done immediately. But is the situation helped any by the constant cacophony of voices blaring at us in an ongoing loop of: Put your money in, take your money out; sell, don’t sell; buy, don’t buy; save the banks, let them fail; bail out GM, let them ride bikes!
I’m not suggesting we stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is wonderful. But isn’t it enough to report the news and let people decide what to think for themselves? Do we really need to hear four “experts” with wildly divergent views talk over each other trying to explain why the economic stimulus plan is right/wrong, inspired/idiotic, calculating/catastrophic?
As with everything else in this life, there are any number of theoretical approaches that can be taken to remedying the current economic crisis. We’re a mere seven weeks into a new administration where, hopefully, greater minds than ours are working overtime to find a way to do just that. How about giving their ideas a chance to work or not before declaring them dead on arrival.
Or publicly wishing that they fail. Does it not occur to Rush-to-Judgement Limbaugh that hoping the policies of the Obama administration fail is akin to hoping this nation falls further into economic decline, just so he and his supporters can flap their arms and say “I told you so.”
Hey, Rush: Your party lost; get over it. If this administration fails, you can do something about it in four years. In the meantime, people are panicked enough without you fomenting more fear through your bloated rhetoric.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit to tuning in nightly to MSNBC. I like Chris Matthews’ moxie, often find Keith Olbermann’s righteous indignation entertaining, and am impressed with Rachel Maddow’s wry observations.
But lately even they’re beginning to get on my frayed nerves. Chris barely gives his guests a chance to speak, talking over them to answer his own questions; Keith is still so hung up on George W. Bush he’s actually making me feel sorry for the guy; and Rachel, well, by the time her show comes on, I’m so wired from the other two, I switch over to the Food Network.
At least there I can observe pastry chefs building a 20-foot-tall Mickey Mouse sculpture out of popcorn without having to listen to blowhards screaming: “The ears are too big! It will never work!” “There’s not enough caramel in the mix! No way that mouse is gonna stand!” “The popcorn is falling, the popcorn is falling!”
If you ask me, there’s too much broadcast media out there with too much time to fill and, yes, kill, when there’s nothing new to report. So the programmers bring in the same panel of opinionated people and pose the same tired questions, parsing words like Bill Clinton at his best in an attempt to find a possible new angle to an already overworked, over-analyzed story.
Enough already. We’re in crisis. People are scared. They don’t care anymore to hear chapter and verse how we got here or who’s responsible for driving us to the edge of the cliff. They’re looking at the country from this day forward and they’re concerned about the future. But most of all, they’re looking for hope, not a war of words among overpaid pundits.
So, please, will everybody just stop talking.
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