A MANDATE & A PAUSE BUTTON

The word "mandate" in our blog title is both a noun and a transitive verb.

Now, that first sentence is bound to win the prize for the most boring opening sentence ever recorded. However, I just couldn't get Snoopy's: "it was a cold and rainy night" to fit in. Stick with me on this.

The fact that the word fits both grammatical classifications is not surprising. What is surprising is what people do with their use of a "mandate".

We have a tendency in this country to give mandates to people. No, they are not commands. They are closer to total unconditional acceptance; and, they don't work.

My wife, Phyl, compares it to her recently buying a red onion, taking it home and after unwrapping the many layers, finding a rotten spot she just did not and could not anticipate.

We gave Nixon a mandate as he sought a second term - he gave us Watergate in return.

We gave Tiger Woods everything but the Navy Cross - he gave us a small number of groupies and a large amount of groping.

The people of Pittsburgh gave two time Super Bowl winner Ben Rothisberger a mandate and now Benny appears to be totally fixated on trying to give it back.

The problem with mandates is that there are a tremendous amount of people like Tiger or Ben who have difficulty determining what, if anything, they could ever do that we would not excuse or understand. They do not appreciate their responsibility to their mandate, nor. being fortunate.

When my working wife says sardonically to me, the retiree who just complained about having to wait in a line at McDonalds to get her a diet coke: "It must have been exhausting for you!" - she's right.

To Tiger's credit, he appears to understand that what he did was not a slip of the tongue, (don't go there!) but truly was his total abuse of the golfing publics mandate.

It matters not whether the offender is a politician, a member of the cloth, a teacher in middle school, or even the milkman whose route changed but continued to deliver milk to the Widow Jones.

We gave all of these people not only a mandate, but our trust. And yes, sadly they and many other people who are the recipients of our unbelievable stupidity -will continue to abuse it.

We are slow to recognize our input in "The Human Condition". We camouflage it under our outrage at our fallen heroes. We are fascinating.

We see a tall man of color approaching us at night on a dark street and quickly size up the situation. We then realize it's Michael Jordan. We frantically search for something for him to autograph or a question to ask . Alas and alack, the person turns out to be a Michael "lookalike", - on crack- who mugs us .

We played a part in that human transaction.

It's not just our heroes avarice, over-sexed personna, or lack of judgment that impacts us. It has as much to do with the feeling of superiority they acquire. Their "misplaced" feeling comes in a large measure from our "misplaced" outpouring of idolation and trust, without applying "the pause button."

We then say,"are these folks doing anything different than your brother,'The CPA', is doing with that Sunday School teacher? I expected as much from him the day I met him." Yeah, we had "a pause button" then, by golly.

The offenses committed by our heroes are similar to the syndrome wherein very intelligent people (VIP's) assume everybody else in the world is stupid. Therefore, they feel they can commit their deeds and voice their opinions with impunity as if they were written on stone tablets. They fear neither discovery nor rational decision making by their audience.

But, don't all of us know someone with a limited education who had both common sense and intelligence pouring out of every torn seam of their clothing? Their lack of formal education didn't get in the way of them simply saying to themselves, "HUH?"

So, why don't we do that with "the spinners" and "subject changers"?

I get so upset at the many "opposing views" written in response to the "our view" column by the editorial board of USA Today - who, occasionally do get it right.

Such a case occurred today when the USA Today "finally" took on the ethics (or lack of same) in Congress. It said basically the same thing about the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) that this blog and surely others must have covered recently.

The rebuttal was written by Michael Capuano, D, Mass, who headed a "bipartisan" task force on ethics enforcement. I imagine Mikey probably falls into that "highly intelligent" group we referenced and felt his reply would be as palatable and satisfying as my wife's cooking.

Mercifully, I won't issue an " item by item" veto here.

When someone says or does anything that just doesn't match up with what we know, it's time for us to consider taking back the mandate. A golfer, idolized by kids, who knows he is constantly being miked and still repeatedly uses 4 letter words after a missed shot, should give all of us an opportunity to hit that old pause button and say, "HUH?".

Our actions may benefit both parties.