Best Served Cold

By Al Horn

We have become a society of I-told-you-so's. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Lord help you if it runs against the general consensus or if it contains a prediction that falls way short of the mark. It used to be there was no harm in admitting you were wrong. In fact, it was the honorable thing to do.

Nowadays, there is little good in admitting you were wrong when your detractors will merely use your admission to make you look worse than you already are. I could not vouch for the old saying of there being honor among thieves. I feel there is little honor among politicians or popular news media. Today's daily newspaper contained an editorial from a well-recognized columnist. It contained nothing but quotes from people who had nay sayed the war in Iraq.

The assessment these people had made could just as easily went their way. The columnist did not care to admit that. She was more interested in proving the detractors were wrong and she was right. If this person were to retire from writing today, she could go on telling everyone how right her initial opinion proved to be. History tells us that the detractors wouldn't have gained such public prominence if they had not made the right call at some point in the past. History tells us that in politics and media baseball, nobody ever finished with a perfect batting average. If this columnist continues to take her swings, sooner or later she will strike out. Just as she feasted today, tomorrow she could become the main course.