Meta: A Good Exchange

Although there are a lot of hateful comments on this site (which contrary to haters’ beliefs is the majority of the comments I received – I don’t censor all of the reasonable conservatives) I have *met* some very thoughtful responders with different views, some of which I email with on a regular basis.  The last few weeks have been busy with real work (this blog, unfortunately, is only an unpaid hobby) and so I missed a lot of things including the Palin-Letterman exchange.  I mean, I totally, 100% missed it.  Like, if you’d called me up and said, “So what do you think about Palin-Letterman?” I would have replied “Who is that?”   Anyway – my lack of commentary solicited this response from one reader:

Alicia-

Once again those of us who starve for information and insight from you have been overwhelmingly disappointed that you have seemingly sacrificed your morals and values, choosing instead to take the high road concering Letterman’s comments about her 14 year-old daughter
at the Yankees game.

And don’t tell me an educated Harvard individual believes he was speaking of her 18 year-old daughter, who wasn’t even at the game.

If this comments or those similar had been said of Chelsea when she was 14 you would have raked the television host over the coals.
And then you would have really went to work on him. You’ve taken shots at Palin before, yet you can’t come out and be brutally honest against one of your fellow Democrats here?

So is it that don’t care about the well being of teenage girls or you don’t care about making our country a better place? So since my favorite Democratic progressive blocker can’t criticize one of her own, maybe you can enlighten me and send me a response.

Close your eyes and pretend these things were said against a young Chelsea or another teenage daughter of a famous Democratic politician. I can’t expect you to do the right thing here and blog about it, but maybe you can enlighten me on what it is you would have said.

Blogging about this incident would have been so commendable of you.

Yikes! I was, of course, immediately taken back.  I think of this as a fun thing to do when I can and it had never occurred to me that I might need to make that clear.  So I emailed the reader back…

Well, to be honest, I have been in a work retreat since Wednesday evening. In fact, I missed the entire Palin thing until this morning. Unfortunately, I’m not a full-time blogger and the job that pays the bill often gets my undivided attention and means I cannot blog as frequently as I’d like. As such, I miss important social occurrences.

I wish your email would have started out with a simple suggestion ” you should write about” or question “why didn’t you?” That said, I always enjoy your correspondence, even if this one was based on some untrue assumptions.

I won’t be back until Sunday but hopefully I can do a recap then. Because you’re right – Letterman was absolutely tasteless.

I didn’t do it on Sunday.  And pretty soon after, Letterman released an over-due apology, so I wasn’t sure commentary was all that necessary.  And I hope that if I had had my head above water I would have gotten it together to write a scathing response.  Because what Letterman said wasn’t funny, and party-affiliation shouldn’t be the dividing line in what makes these things okay or not okay.  The dividing line is good-taste and the protection of our children.

I did hear back from the reader who apologized for making some assumptions and felt compelled to explain why he was so disappointed:

I encouraged a couple of my conservative Republican friends to read a few of your blogs so I began forwarding some. One said something degrading about you. I’m not going to repeat it because you don’t need to hear it and I don’t believe in using foul language. But what I said to him that night was something like, “Hey don’t say that about her.”

He laughed at first because he thought I wasn’t being serious. But a few seconds later he got it. They know now not to say negative things about you. But they hate Democrats. And they have no interest in hearing their side. And if I can’t get my friends to respect the views of others then how can I ever truly have hope our country can come together to work together?

And the Letterman incident just weakens ;our country even more.

So I had put some hope in you. In my opinion, you have a powerful voice and the ability to reach and influence others. I’m not the biggest Palin fan (I wanted Romney as running mate) but the media has been unfair to her. And you should understand because they weren’t fair to H. Clinton either. And I have seen first hand how teenage girls can struggle with self esteem.

Palin is not a candidate at the moment. And even if she was running for something, why bring her kids into anything? And I think you understand what I’m trying to say. You have been through an experience that not many of us can relate to.

I may struggle at getting through to my friends but I think you have the ability to get through to people. Because you won me over, despite our differences.

And the reader won me over.  I don’t buy the O’Reilly brand of blasting progressives after-the-fact for what we don’t do.  But sometimes we all need a gentle nudge to remind us that other people actually want to hear what we want to say.  This reader’s emails made me think about why hadn’t written and will serve as an important reminder moving forward.  This is what bi-partisan dialogue could look like.  Sure, the reader shouldn’t have assumed that I was choosing not to write, but that aside, his commentary was thoughtful, honest and compelling, and it gave me a much needed kick in the butt to come back and write again.