American electorate living in glass houses

Too often people criticize others without realizing that they do the same thing about which they are criticizing another. This is particularly true when it comes to politics and the upcoming presidential election. People, no matter their political leanings, hold politicians to a higher standard than they hold themselves.

People that criticize President George W. Bush often believe that he’s stupid, hard-headed, and unable to pronounce half of the words in the English language. They also make faulty assumptions as to why the president does certain things.

Many of those criticizing President Bush have, at some point in their lives, made the same mistakes he has made. If you tell me that you have never mispronounced a word or butchered a phrase in your life, I would think that you’re lying.

You also cannot say for sure why the president sometimes has trouble speaking. It could be because he is stupid, but it also could be because he has speechwriters that do not use spell check, or he could have zoned out for a minute as we all do sometimes. A gut impression can be wrong.

As for why the president can be hard- headed, the answer probably is the same as the answer to the question “Why can I be hard-headed?” President Bush is obviously not going to emphasize the bad parts of the American occupation of Iraq. For one, it would hurt his reelection chances. But more importantly, people – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – always take something positive out of their mistakes and emphasize that part. It’s what makes us human.

In that respect, President Bush is no different than your Uncle Buck talking about how he almost shot a deer while hunting. It may not be right to ignore the bad consequences of your actions, but most of us do it at some point in our lives.

This piece would not be complete if I did not take on the people firing verbal shots at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. People criticizing John Kerry often believe that he straddles both sides of an issue (flip-flops) and that he’s a stuck-up elite, which is also a faulty assumption. All of us have flip-flopped on some important decision in our lives. We’ve probably all told a friend that we want to hang out with them a day beforehand, then blown them off right before the meeting was supposed to occur. Many of us at some point also flip-flop on political issues while trying to figure out what exactly we believe. Even politicians are allowed to be human.

As for the stuck-up elite criticism, it likely arises out of jealousy and misunderstanding of Kerry. We all want to be rich and often envy those who are wealthy. We also can’t really be sure that Kerry is stuck-up, because most of us have never met the man. We just know what the press shows us, which often tells only part of the story. One can never be positive about something viewed through the eyes of another.

Everyone is guilty of making these faulty assumptions about all people – even me. I really do not like either President Bush or Sen. Kerry and can see where criticisms of both men arise. Of course, the person we choose for president should be at least a little better than the average Joe. We must remember, however, that no matter whom we choose for president, he is still human. Even popular former presidents such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton had human qualities – and made mistakes.

When we vote, we must remember that the unfavorable qualities in a candidate exist in us too. Then we must decide if we accept a candidate’s unfavorable qualities enough to vote for him or her. After all – a perfect candidate will never exist.