Professional cynics

Yes, I’m going back to Gov. Huckabee and the infamous, dreaded “floating cross.”

Virtually no one seems to have seen it until it was pointed out to them. Peggy Noonan writes about this in her column today from Opinion Journal:

I didn’t see the famous floating cross. What I saw when I watched Mike Huckabee’s Christmas commercial was a nice man in a sweater sitting next to a brightly lit tree. He had easy warmth and big brown puppy-dog eyes, and he talked about taking a break from politics to remember the peace and joy of the season. Sounds good to me.

She then goes on to say that it was on her second viewing that she saw the sinister, evil, divisive, and nefarious “cross” made out of a bookcase.

I think that what we have here is a non-issue for normal people. Political junkies see it … and political insiders see it.

That’s because political junkies and political insiders are always looking for the angle. Listen to the commentators — “Nothing is ever accidental.”

“Nothing just happens.”

“These people never do anything without planning it and scripting it.”

That’s how they see the world. That’s what they look for. Cynicism is a way of life, and distrust is a job requirement.

Certainly, that can be understood. In a world of liars and charlatans, it’s good to be aware of the tricks of the trade. At the same time, it’s too bad if cynicism dominates life.

On every conservative talk show and blog, the right to say “Merry Christmas” is rabidly defended.

But when someone actually says it, it’s derided.

There is something wrong in our culture if we fight ferociously to defend something, until someone actually does it.

But more than that, there is something wrong with the thought process of people who look for reasons to be offended. They seek out reasons to believe that someone else is being mean to them.

It was just a couple weeks ago that virtually every conservative in the nation was scoffing at liberals for calling Mitt Romney’s  speech divisive because he didn’t “reach out” specifically to atheists. But now, some are using the same kind of charge against Mike Huckabee — by saying “Merry Christmas,” he is somehow being divisive.

Peggy Noonan said that she didn’t see the “floating cross” at first. If you look at the responses to the article, other people said the same.

I suspect that no normal person saw it the first time through — they only saw it when it was pointed out and the controversy was created.

I think that Peggy Noonan is making the same mistake that she told about in What I Saw at the Revolution, her 1990 memoir  about the Reagan  era.

In the second chapter, she tells this story:

And they [her peers at CBS] would see these not as liberal positions but as decent, intelligent positions. They also thought their views were utterly in line with those of the majority of Americans. In a way that’s what’s at the heart of our modern political disputes, a disagreement over where the mainstream is and what “normal” is, politically and culturally. I think a lot of the young people at the networks didn’t really know what normal was in America, and I hold this view because after working six years in broadcasting and three in New York, I no longer knew what normal was.

A small example. Once I wrote a radio script in which I led into a story by saying, “This Sunday morning you’ll probably be home reading the papers or out at brunch with friends, but Joe Smith will be …” A middle-aged editor listened as he walked by the studio and approached me afterward. “Peggy, a small point but maybe not so insignificant: This Sunday morning most Americans will be at church.”

He was, of course, correct. But I forgot. I wasn’t at church on Sunday mornings, I was in a restaurant on Columbus Avenue eating mushroom omelets and reading the Arts and Leisure section of The New York Times.

Ultimately, professional activists and commentators don’t see the world the way the rest of us do. Frankly, I think that that’s what has happened here. People who make a living out of being cynical and not trusting others are creating an issue out of nothing.

Even this time, it took her at least two viewings to spot this supposedly-nefarious cross.

Normal people don’t care what’s in Barack Obama’s kindergarten records. Normal people don’t care about a story saying Hillary Clinton didn’t tip a waitress. Normal people don’t care if Fred Thompson played a racist character 20-some-odd years ago. (By the way, I rather liked “Wiseguy,” though I think it had gone downhill by the time Thompson appeared. But that’s not his fault.) I don’t think that most people care about Mormon doctrine.

I don’t think that normal people saw a bookshelf and believed it to be a subliminal cross with any kind of devious message. I think that only professional cynics even imagine such things … and the rest of us need to be a check on this kind of silliness.

And, by the way … it’s now Friday night on the 21st. Tomorrow is my father’s birthday, then there’s Sunday, and then Christmas Eve. I will probably not be online much at all for the next three days. Therefore, let me take this opportunity to wish you a very merry Christmas (*)  to all who aren’t bothered by such greetings.

To the rest, have a good weekend, happy Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, or whatever else suits your fancy.

(Not mentioning Hanukkah simply because it’s already over for this year.)

Be well.

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