When Did I Switch Sides?

I didn't really want to go to breakfast but did. Eggs Benedict and
bloody marys were to good to turn down. Especially in Oxford, Mississippi.
Periodically, I go there to channel William Faulkner but most of the time it turns out to be my Uncle Jack Daniels. A favorite bed-and-breakfast.
A way to clear my head from the newsroom.

Breakfast went as smooth as it could until a seasoned group of travellers joined us.
Eating with people I don't know early in the morning...with a headache...is not something I do well. But in the course of conversation, I made an observation about
SEC football. Something about I wish Mississippi could step up and compete against the big boys like Tennessee and Florida. But I didn't think they could.
Maybe we could help them? Let them annex a county or two out ot Florida?

Out of the blue, a retired minister's wife, a pleasant woman wearing her Sunday best leaned over and said "well son, you sound like a democrat. That's what they do.
They try and make everyone all the same. Like one of those news people.
Always talking on the news about some guy that wants somebody to give something to him. I hate those people."

Sounds like an Alabama fan actually. But I digress.

My wife, who was already on her second bloody mary at 9:15 in the morning, started laughing and said "Hey Tvboy, tell her what you do for a living!"

Had to kill my bloody mary first and then pour a second.

I leaned in. Spoke softly so all would strain to hear.

"I'm a reporter. A member of the liberal news media. And every single day I
try to tear this country down brick by brick."

Needless to say. Breakfast was over.

Being from the painfully polite upper crust of Jackson, Mississippi, the woman said
"you have a blessed day."

Thanking them I stood up wished them well, and said "You kind people are welcome to join us at Ajax for lunch. But first we have to go to an ACLU meeting. Maybe we will see you at the Hillary Clinton book-signing at Square Books later today."

The evil liberal media.

On Sunday, I changed sides and didn't know it. I'm now apparently on the side of the vast right-wing conservative conspiracy.

Sunday, Feb. 24, we were scheduled to air the CBS 60 Minutes story about the prosecution of Don Siegelman. But right as the show started, we lost the feed and missed the first eight minutes.
The show featured a republican attorney who says Karl Rove asked her to spy on Siegelman, and also that the former governor was prosecuted for being a democrat in a republican state.

A technical problem. A glitch. A screwup. A mistake.

But all those open-minded people are now cursing, threatening, and and berating us. They think we're part of the republican-conspiracy to keep Siegelman in jail.

Today, I have been physically threatened. Another e-mailer says we will "get what is coming to us."

Other call us pigs, say we should be ashamed, one says his life goal is to screw us, and yet another wants us to die.

Nothing like calm political discourse. Our little technical problem is a microcosm of the country in which we live.

People make up their mind regardless of the facts. Don't confuse me with the truth.
I, seemingly, chosen a side in the republican and democratic debate. A bitter and hateful fight that is getting worse every day. It's about who is good and bad, and not who is right or wrong.

Now after so many years in the liberal media, I guess I can bask in the republican wading pool. Can I go back and forth? When the republicans run out of those white wedding cookies, can I go back to the democratic pool for oatmeal?

I've voted for democrats in my life. I've voted for republicans.
I make up my own mind. I don't vote one way or another because someone like Rush or Olbermann tells me their version of reality.

I can find and manipulate the Charmin without their help. I can also make my own mind up about conspiracy theories and the one that suggests we deliberately fouled up the CBS feed is just dead wrong.

If you have a reasoned and thoughtful opinion, I will talk and debate with you.

Curse and threaten me, scare my co-workers, and call so you can scream...then just listen to this sound....

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