Posted on 07/07/2004 10:30:25 AM PDT by Apolitical
Got a problem on your hands? Realize you've done something you shouldn't have? Or failed to do something you should?
Instead of beating yourself up with guilty thoughts and carrying around a bruisingly heavy conscience, why not take a page out of the average politician's book? You know the drill. Admit there's a problem. Then blame someone else.
This is a skill politicians the world over have mastered. For example, in India, where the railway infrastructure is so poorly maintained accidents are becoming common, the railways minister has now abdicated responsibility to the Gods. "Indian Railways is the responsibility of Lord Vishwakarm," the minister told an Indian newspaper, referring to the Hindu God of machines. "It is his duty [to ensure safety], not mine."
Well, why didn't he say so sooner? Then maybe people wouldn't have been so upset with him last month when 20 were killed and about 100 were injured in a passenger train that fell off a bridge. If they had known, citizens would have redirected all their angry letters to Vishwakarm's celestial postal box instead.
Ridiculous as it may seem, the blame-it-on-God strategy is not uncommon. Recall that when 244 people died in a stampede at the Hajj during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca earlier this year, the Hajj Minister insisted, "All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will." Why Saudi organizers didn't anticipate God's apparent predilection for deadly stampedes given that such tragedies had happened several times before during the same rituals is a bit of mystery. But we see the Minister's point. The lack of organization and adequate safety provisions really weren't his fault.
More recently and closer to home, Bill Clinton has used his new autobiography as an opportunity to shift blame to the West's favorite scapegoat: a bad childhood. He did something wrong by cheating on Hillary, he tells us. But what do you expect given the lousy start he got?
I'm very glad Clinton cleared this one up because before, I had been under the impression that he was just an irresponsible philanderer. Now, I see that...well, o.k., the technique doesn't always work............
(Excerpt) Read more at taemag.com ...
"Hey I'm depraved on accounta I'm deprived"
"But what do you expect given the lousy start he got? "
He got the same lousy start that Ronald Reagan got. Notice the difference in behavior?
FMCDH(BITS)
But Officer Krupke, you gotta understand...
Are we dating ourselves or what?
But Officer Krupke, you gotta understand...
Are we dating ourselves or what?
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