Criticize Those Trying-Not Those That Did It… Right

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:53 AM Permalink

Scene: there is a gaping, smoking hole in the ground, a thousand feet deep and a thousand feet in diameter. It obviously poses a danger to everyone passing nearby. It obviously was not dug in a day, either, but over many years. A person passing by observes 50 people shoveling furiously, trying to fill in the hole. Down inside the gaping pit there are 49 people furiously shoveling dirt out. The press praises those digging deeper while denigrating and disparaging the efforts of the 50 to fill in the hole. They at the same time complain that the hole has not yet been filled, despite the fact that 50 people have been working at it constantly for five months, completely ignoring the fact that the 49 continue to keep digging the hole deeper, bigger, and wider than ever before.

Passer-by: What are you guys doing?
1 of 50: We're trying to fill in this hole that is damaging America.

Passer-by: How the hell are you going to that when those other 49 guys are still digging it deeper, and they are using government supplied bulldozers! And even with bulldozers it took 'em over 6 years to dig America into a hole that deep and wide, and here you are with just shovels to fill it in. Why haven't you gotten this done and dug us out of this hole?
1 of 50: Well, we are forced to work with shovels because we can't get a bill past the 49 people working against us and we've only had five months of a very slim majority, so what? You expect us to have done this job even though they have only one less person than us, but with the advantage of the filibuster bulldozers and a boss that they support no matter how bad he screws things up? And a boss that keeps giving them more and more bulldozers to dig us deeper into the hole?

Passer-by: Well, I can certainly see the problem, has anyone complained and pointed out the disparity here and worked to form a consensus that this hole must be filled?
1 of 50: Oh, sure, but because we can't get this hole filled while those other guys continue to dig us deeper using parliamentary tricks, obfuscation, out-right lies, and every devious trick they have learned, those other guys have convinced the public that we are not up to the job.

Passer-by: But aren't the people smart enough to see that your best efforts are for naught BECAUSE of the obstructionist tactics of those other guys?
1 of 50: Are you kidding? The propaganda has been so intense, for so long, that those other guys have convinced the public that we don't know what we're doing so thoroughly that even people on our side, some of those here with me trying to fill this hole in, no longer have faith in us.

Passer-by: W-h-a-a-a-t? You fifty have only shovels and have had only five months to fill that gaping hole while others keep digging it deeper and deeper with heavy equipment and you 50 are blamed and not the ones who dug us into this hole?
1 of 50: Yep. That's the way it's going down. Because we can't fill a hole in a few short months after the other guys have dug it over many years and continue to dig it deeper and deeper, the talking-heads and pundits are criticizing us heavily. They say it's our fault that we couldn't instantly cure the problem and get this hole filled in.

Passer-by: Well, that sounds utterly illogical, nonsensical, unfair, biased, and it makes it seem like you 50 are doing nothing while you are obviously trying to fix a problem not of your making and one that has had many years to fester and grow and become infected with corrupt, crony partisanship and incompetence on the part of those other guys, doesn't it?
1 of 50: Yep.

Passer-by: Aw, c'mon, who would be so short-sighted and dumb enough to blame this on you when it's plain the other guys are using every dirty trick in the books to make you look bad and keep you from filling in this gaping pit?
1 of 50: Almost every talking head and pundit on television or in the press.

Passer-by: Why would they do that?
1 of 50: Some are instructed to, some fall prey to the other guy's propaganda.

Passer-by: How could they be so stupid?
1 of 50: They don't know how to use a shovel.

Cross-posted from Edging.

Labels: irony