Insult and Injury

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never hurt me.
-- Childhood jingle

   The childish habit of hurling insults is something that most people grow out of as they mature to adulthood. Unfortunately, some people never grow up enough so that they can put away childish things and deal with issues on the more practical level of compromise and accomplishment.
   That seems to be a habit among politicians, more prevalent these days than ever before. Calling other people nasty names may be emotionally satisfying to the hurler, but its only practical effect is to widen the gap between two sides, making it more difficult to compromise and accomplish anything of benefit to the nation.
   Journalists are obligated to speak truth to power, and the more untruthful the speech of the powerful, the stronger must be the critiques from journalists. However, the response from prominent politicians and government officials currently is to blame the messenger who points out discrepancies from accuracy -- read, lies -- perpetrated by political types.
   Some government officials can't take the heat of disagreement from those who are not totally loyal, devoted acolytes. Perhaps the provincialism of their business background and experience tells them that such behavior succeeds. And while this strategy may work for them in business, clearly government and politics is a bigger league.
   The worst offender in America is the current president, who resorts to name-calling and personal insult to attack journalists who report not only what the president says and does, but also how those words and action diverge from fact and reality.
   It's not personal on their part; they're doing their jobs  as impartial, neutral reporters. OK, some are not impartial and neutral, but these are more properly labelled commentators or pundits expressing opinions. Even so, they too are entitled to their opinions, ludicrous though they may be, and their right to express them is guaranteed by the First Amendment, just as the rights of neutral journalists are equally guaranteed.
  Politicians don't get to pick and choose the reporters, journalists, commentators and pundits who write and speak about the issues of the day. Certainly, a president can select which TV pundits he listens to and which newspapers he reads, preferring only those that agree with him, but he cannot and must not dictate that only those news outlets that agree with him be allowed to publish.
   And no amount of name calling and personal abuse can change that. Besides, unlike the president, journalists have thicker skins, so they either ignore the insults or they report them to their readers, viewers and listeners as they would any other newsworthy event or comment made by the one who is allegedly the leader of the free world, charged with upholding the principles of the Constitution's guarantee of free speech, and a free press.