Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Left Field

My experience is that disaster always comes from left field. This is to say that the things we fear most, those we anticipate, prepare for and try to prevent, never happen. What does happen is something totally unexpected and unanticipated. That I believe is what will rear up in opposition to the Benghazi cover-up. The revelation will come from out of Left Field.

Most writers have a muse. A muse is a voice that does not originate from inside a person but which wafts past and the writer follows the scent like a hound, scribbling madly. I think of it as the immortal voice of the human spirit that can’t be extinguished. It is the source of all religion, a voice of conscience, and an awareness that our evolution is not something that happened by accident or evolved in some form of timeless chaos. Sometimes that voice comes in a dream, at others in a blinding flash or revelation and at still others in a whisper.

Lately I have been thinking about Mr. Snowdon and my first thought is outrage that someone in his position could leak such sensitive information. Then I was reminded of the indignation I felt towards Jane Fonda during the Vietnam War. Whispers, whispers, whispers. My dad once told me that I was too dumb to lie and should stick to the truth for the right reasons as well as the wrong. I think the wisdom of such thinking is being applied to the cover-up. In football they have the miss- direction play. The way it works is that an offense shows the flow going in one direction and the running back hides the ball and breaks against the grain. This is a clever and effective technique because it uses some truth to conceal a whole lot more.

I am sure that those in the highest branches of government have managed to convince themselves that the cover-up is necessary. We all have a justification mechanism. That doesn’t make the lie any less deceitful. In Sunday school we were taught that lying is a bad thing. In Vietnam I tried to do the right thing and behave with honor and most would feel no shame for what I did. However, it bothers me because men died, men who were not so different from me, except for being on the wrong side of the ball. At the time I brushed my actions aside with the ease of a sociopath, but as the years passed reassurances of the ends justifying the means began holding less and less water.

The right reason for abandoning this cover-up is because it immoral. The wrong reason is that it’s an overburdened boat, being rowed upstream. Those involved might be performing like superstars but the truth is they’re acting like Lois Learner. Nobody’s watching left field where the unexpected is going to rear its ugly head.