A couple of weeks ago, Ellen DeGeneres was skewered because she posted a picture of her sitting in a box with former President George W. Bush watching a football game in Texas and apparently, they were having a good time together. Somehow, she was selling her soul by being nice to someone.
She had to defend herself by saying she had all kinds of friends and that we should be kind to each other. I love the live action “Cinderella” movie with the guy from “Game of Thrones” and the girl from “Downton Abbey.” One of the big lines in the movie is “be kind and have courage.” I think those are words to live by.
This week, Republican members of Congress stormed what they believed to be an inappropriate secret meeting related to the so-called impeachment inquiry into President Trump. I call it “so-called” because I believe it has been approached in an unfair way and that Speaker Pelosi has lost control—but that is a column for next week. The most disturbing part of it, and there were many, was not the actual “breaching” of the room, but the response of colleagues from the other side questioning whether the disrupters has brought Russian and Chinese spies into the room also and somehow spoiled it.
If everyone is a Russian or Chinese asset, then is no one safe? If you believe that our enemies have bought off large swaths of the elected officials, I think you probably need more than a microphone in your face, you might need therapy.
The “0 to 60” way that criticism is doled out on Capitol Hill is disturbing.
So let’s try this. Think before you speak. Choose your words carefully. And understand if you are one of the 435 or 100 elected officials under the Capitol Rotunda, you have been elected by a group of Americans who should be respected.
Let’s start over and improve this level of discourse. Historically, it takes a WWI or a WWII to reset the rhetoric, and I don’t think any of us want that.
