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You can't please all the people all the time

It is hard to please people in this day and age. It is especially difficult to "please all the people all the time."

I can't speak for others, but I can speak for myself. If I could only learn to "put my brain in gear before opening my mouth," I might escape safely. Too often I don't do that and insert my foot where I don't want it to be. I am not alone.

I think President Obama and any other high ranking political figures would agree with me. President Obama seems to be much more the expert at saying the right thing at the right time than most of us. That is one of his myriad of assets. He is a master communicator. He chooses his words very carefully with or without a monitor.

Hard as anyone might try, however, pleasing everyone is virtually impossible. That is especially true in this era where every word a key figure utters is bound to be recorded by friends and foes alike for either friendly or devious purposes. Perhaps that is why so many meetings now are held in secret.

Take Joe Biden's recent comment, for instance, when an employee humorously asked him if he could lower the taxes for him and others like him. Biden, while sucking on a free ice cream cone, simply asked the man "Are you trying to be a smart ass?" Perhaps the man was, perhaps he was not. Either way the comment was frozen for posterity (although I doubt anyone but FOX carried it regularly throughout the day). Biden is a good man, but is prone to saying the wrong thing at the most inappropriate time. George W. Bush had the same bad habit. The only difference is that in Bush's case, it was the liberals who wouldn't let it die and in Biden's case, it is the Republicans who will keep it alive for years to come.

Politicians do have a tendency to "tell the people what they want to hear" on any given occasion. Anyone who thinks many audiences aren't carefully analyzed ahead of time is not living in the real world. Politicians gear their remarks very carefully for the audience in question. In many cases, the people know in advance what questions will be asked of them.

Furthermore, when the candidates fail to follow through on what they are proposing, they have this tendency to deny it, say they were misinterpreted or blame their failure to follow through on others. That is being done today on a regular basis. It is a custom that is not foreign to any political party. When things fail, it is customary to blame it on the previous administration. Sometimes that is true. In most cases, it is either only partially true or a complete "cop-out."

Perhaps that is why, in this day and age, there is an attempt being made and more often carried out to have only those constituents gathered together who agree with speakers on a given occasion. The secret is to qualify audiences before they are allowed to attend political rallies, etc. That way it looks and sounds like what is being articulated is absolute truth. Totalitarian countries do this all the time. Are we headed in that direction?

It seems like all I have to do to irritate someone is open my mouth. I seem to forget the old adage that expresses the truism "you should say absolutely nothing that does not improve upon silence." How about you? Do you suffer from the same malady? If not, what's your communication problem? Ken Barker is at kjbark-er@premieronline. net



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© 2011 Lyon County Reporter Rock Rapids, Iowa. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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