Opinions Run Amok: Being Certain Doesn’t Make You Right

You may like Sarah Palin, you may not. (Full disclosure: I don’t.) But there is one concrete, indisputable fact: she tried to riff on Paul Revere and messed up. She was trying to answer a question, tripped up on her words, tried to recover. But it wasn’t a success.

This happens to people – especially people who have cameras pointed at them – all the time. It doesn’t make them ignorant, or a fool. It means they stumbled over their words. It’s OK.

Here’s what’s not OK: pretending that you did exactly what you meant to do.

Remember what Miss South Carolina did when she had a similar moment a few years back? She owned it. She laughed it off, got a do-over and earned a ton of admiration.

Palin took a different tack. She denied that she’d erred and proclaimed that she was the victim of a “gotcha” question. Her legions took up the cause at Wikipedia and in the press. Which brings us to the bigger issue here.

At some point, America, we’re going to need to grow up.

At some point, we’re going to have to stop pretending that every side has an equally valid issue or that matters of long-established fact are open for debate. The more time we spend debating settled issues, the less time we spend debating possible solutions. We’re going to need to own our mistakes and our mistaken beliefs and base our decision-making on facts, not faith. The right must engage a new enemy: no longer should they rail against moral relativism; they must now inveigh against factual relativism. Many would argue that the left must do the same; I suspect many will do so in the comments below.

What’s alarming is how infrequently we hear calls for rationality. Where are the leaders who will say, look, let’s set these obfuscations aside and solve problems? Where are the broadly respected figures – the Bill Gates or Colin Powells or George H. W. Bushes – to sit America down, cut through the crap, and figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s next?

Well, we sort of know the answer to that. A critique has become a mortal challenge in American politics. So as soon as someone knowledgable and unaligned with a political ideology offers critique, they’re immediately slathered with the broad brush of partisanship. Think Warren Buffet is a liberal? He’s not – his father was a Republican Congressman from Nebraska – but there’s a reason you think he is. Because he’s calling out misinformation and specious reasoning, and the people who that impacts take offense.

It’s fast becoming cliche, but on September 12th, 2001, a new sobriety set in. In a sense, though, that sobriety was a re-dedication to reason. Who did this to us? Why? We set aside the distractions of Gary Condit and debates over shark infestations and dedicated ourselves to fixing America. For about a month.

If we can’t follow the example our leaders in promoting rational discussion than we must be dedicated to it ourselves. No matter how much we might want someone elected to office (or to remain in office) we must do our best to see and present them honestly – to others and to ourselves. We need to do better. I need to do better.

Sarah Palin has many flaws. Stumbling over her words in an inconsequential video is not one of them. Pretending that’s what she meant to do is – and is symptomatic of one of the most significant challenges we as Americans face in solving increasingly alarming problems.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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