Imagine being held expressly responsible for everything you say-every claim, every joke, every individual word scrutinized. The amount of soap in your mouth, the sum of money in the swear jar and the number of next-day Facebook messages admonishing you for all the regrettable things you said would be astonishing.
Your date to the formal would find out that you kissed and told. Your professor would hear what you muttered to the person sitting next to you when she handed back papers and the girl at the table to your right would know that you called her a clap-having-jezebel the night before as she grinded up on your ex at the club.
For most people, this degree of accountability is of course not the reality. Indeed, few outside of highly public positions have their words so closely scrutinized, but every now and then, we get called out for running our mouths a bit too freely.
This past weekend, a friend of mine went to a sorority function as the date of a high school friend of one of the sisters. He, like most econ majors that get too carried away with their love affairs with Adam Smith, self-identifies as an economic conservative. And, like most Duke students (well, at least the ones from the North), he subscribes to the ideologies of social liberalism. Those beliefs together make him, like many of the socially enlightened rich kids at Duke, a Libertarian.
He told his date-a Hillary Clinton supporter from Georgetown University who seemed to have adopted her candidate's sense of humor-of his political leanings when the election came up in conversation. She at first was silent. To fill the void, my friend, in his best Stephen Colbert voice, exclaimed, "John McCain is the last real American in this election!"
Her response: "So you want equality, but you don't want to pay for it. You Greenwich Republicans make me sick."
Treated.
Thus came the end of the chance for any president-intern role-playing activities for the evening (Bill and Monica jokes are funny again, if only for a brief moment, so I am getting my money's worth).
No media hoopla came about from what he said (unless you count this column), and his poorly timed joke only ended in mild public embarrassment and a lonely night. But what if he and the rest of us were scrutinized for every single word that rolled off of our tongues, just like politicians and other public figures?
This year's presidential campaign has seen more than its fair share of pseudocontroversial statements for cable news to pick apart. As a result, heads have rolled, qualifications have been questioned and accusations have been spit back and forth.
A Barack Obama campaign adviser called Clinton a "monster," and then resigned soon after.
John McCain said that he "doesn't really understand economics" and deferred instead to the advice of his economic advisers. The media and his opponents have not stopped rehashing this statement since.
Hillary Clinton embellished a trip she took to Bosnia during her husband's presidency with exaggerated tales of landing under sniper fire. She was forced to admit that she was a human who made mistakes and not, as I certainly believed before she clarified, a robot from the future on a mission to terminate naive feelings like hope and optimism.
These remarks were throw-away comments. They were said with little more purpose than to replace silence with words, much like my friend's date-ending declaration. The national attention devoted to such statements only serves to distract from the bigger picture. We are so caught up in the "he said, she said" nonsense that we fail to hear anything of import.
Let these off-hand remarks go; instead focus on the issues that actually matter. Learn from the Georgetown girl. She could have had it all, but now is left with only her self-righteousness.
Jordan Rice is a Trinity sophomore. This is his final column of the semester.
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