Priests, Professors and Presidents

I am not a huge news junkie. I dabble from time to time in the cable news channels, but the end result is that either I am angered by the voyeuristic coverage of whatever tragedy the public seems eager to consume, or I feel like the world is just completely crazy. In a given day one can be convinced by the news that everything you do will give you cancer, (yesterday for me was Radon gasses in basements—who knew?) that is if your heart doesn’t kill you first. Add to that the general feeling of unrest caused by images of "Death to America" and burning American flags and you’ve got yourself a real party.
The trouble is that I feel an obligation and a desire to be an informed person. Time magazine and the Internet help keep me abreast of all the current news, although I pretty much feel like I’m heading to an imminent death when I read them too. I’ve found the antidote to this type of news coverage on The Daily Show on Comedy Central. There is something soothing about being able to laugh at the news. The host, John Stewart, doesn’t shy away from much and there are no sacred cows on this show, and he is also willing to call our government to task for what it says it is going to do and what it actually does. The guests he hosts are frequently authors of thought provoking books on politics, the energy crisis and other such topics and his method of debating the real issues is inspiring. To me it is healthy and hopeful to have a dialogue going on about real issues on a comedy show.
On last night’s episode, (which was a recent repeat due to John Stewart’s pre-Oscar prepping) there was a clip of Andrew Natsios of USAID predicting in 2003 that the cost of the war in Iraq wouldn’t exceed 1.7 Billion for America. As the cost of the war is upwards of 200 Billion at this point, it is shocking and laughable, as Stewart presents it, that there is this discrepancy. And still this administration refuses to admit how catastrophically wrong they were in their estimations and calculations.
Still mulling it over, I asked my husband last night as we climbed into bed, "Who can get away with such gross incompetence and still keep their job?" You can’t be the CEO of a major company and be so consistently wrong. You can’t bungle most of your operations and remain a board-certified surgeon. You can’t be a waste-management specialist and miss the can that often. These people would lose their jobs. You have to be embroiled in bureaucracy, tenure or diocesan politics to stay afloat in such muck. I know that you can’t please everyone all the time, but how about some of us some of the time?