Transgressives like me are always pleased when the political masks drop and the truth spills out, unencumbered by cautious, diplomatic strategery (thank you George Bush for one of my favorite neologisms).
But there are cooler and more sagacious heads who point out that candor can be dangerous in worlds where egos have no check. One of my favorite bloggers, the ever intelligent, thorough and compelling Judith H. Dobrzynski, author of Real Clear Arts, has pointed out the downside of Rocco Landesman’s first interview that I was reveling about yesterday (read my posting below).
My expansive, frank and truth loving self loves his bravado. My pragmatic, “that’s the way the world works” contracted self recognizes the compromises all political figures have to broker every day. It is the same tension I feel when I watch Obama navigate the sharky waters of a Washington world, weaving this way, then that, veering close and then far. That is a landscape in which someone like me would last about 3 nanoseconds before being duct taped and airlifted to outer Mongolia.
Here’s a snippet of Dobrzynski’s sobering and more measured response to Landesman’s comments:
Yet as much as I agree with most of what he said, Landesman took a very big risk with that interview. Washington, as I wrote over the weekend in a commentary for Forbes, demands respect and often chews up people who don’t play by its rules. His remark about Peoria, even if true, will come back to haunt him surer than the “wise Latina” remark messed up Sonia Sotomayor. It’s going to make budget requests and hearings much more difficult.
Read her entire posting on Landesman here.