So, last night there was a bit of controversy in the
first game of the World Series. A double play ground ball was hit by one of the
Red Sox. If properly executed, the Cardinals would have gotten out of the
inning unscathed. Instead, the shortstop completely missed the ball. It glanced
off of the webbing of his glove. Bases loaded. Except the umpire who was
standing 5 feet from the play with a perfect view inexplicably called the
runner out. As you might expect, Red Sox nation proceeded to have an apocalyptical
fit. But, because this is baseball, sanity and justice would prevail.
Immediately after the horrible call, the other five umpires converged on the second
base bag. A conference began, in which a unanimous conclusion was drawn that
Dana Demuth had in fact made a bad call. The call was reversed, order restored,
whereupon Mike Napoli hit a bases clearing double. None of this is to say that
Mr. Demuth is a horrible umpire. He just made a mistake.
As I watched this unfold, a thought passed through
my fertile imagination. What if politics worked this way?
What if the Republican Party after 9/11 would have
gotten together and said, “You know, these terrorists are real bastards and
all, but do we really want to fight a ground war in freaking Iraq? And, I know
we’re all scared right now, but this Patriot Act thing might really come back
to bite us in the buttocks one day. Why don’t we all calm down a little, and
take some time to think this all through?”
What if the Democratic Party after the roll out of
HealthCare.gov would get together and say, “Holy Crap! How do you spend 650
billion dollars on a website and end up with this? Listen guys, I know that
most of us have wanted Socialized medicine for all of our lives and all, but this
Obamacare business is a train wreck. Do we really want to be associated with
such a colossal disaster? How about we go back to the drawing board and design
a bill with 200 instead of 2000 pages?”
Although baseball is clearly showing us the way, the
above two scenarios will never happen because it would require basic humility
and an admission of error.
Never gonna happen.
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