I blame it on the damned “send” button. It’s just too convenient, too inviting. It sits temptingly at the top of the e-mail screen, whispering seductively: “Go ahead…push me.”
And I often do…even when I haven’t completely thought through what I’ve just written.
I suspect we’ve all done it from time to time. Usually it’s when you send an e-mail in anger or in haste (or in angry haste). Later – usually after the recipient flames you right back – you re-read your words and wonder what the hell you we’re thinking.
My problem, historically, is that when I hit send the words have the potential of reaching 30,000 or so readers, some of whom don’t share my sometimes warped views or sense of humor. Many times, I’ve been saved by a good editor who will say, “Ummm…Jonesy, do you have a death wish?” Other times, the clunker will be overlooked by these busy folks and, voila, I instantly have an inbox full of “Dear Bonehead” letters.
That’s why I feel David Feherty’s pain this morning. Feherty, the CBS golf commentator and columnist for Golf magazine, is one of my literary idols. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with him a couple of times and I’ve probably read damn near every word he’s ever written. He’s usually hilarious, often bawdy and occasionally quite edgy.
It’s the edgy part that got him into trouble over the weekend when a column he wrote in “D Magazine” about George and Laura Bush returning to live in Dallas digressed into politics and the war. The whole article is here (http://www.dmagazine.com/2009/03/23/Welcome_Home_No_43.aspx - you have to scroll down a bit to get to his section), but here’s the passage that lit up the lights and sirens of the political correctness police:
“From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though. Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”
It’s just a new variation on an old joke. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were a Dick Cheney version or a Rush Limbaugh version out there that would evoke snickers from Sen. Pelosi or Sen. Reid at a cocktail party. But, Feherty put it in print and the outrage and moral indignation ensued.
He immediately issued an apology, admitting that his sense of humor had inadvertently crossed the line. (Quite honestly, I’d be shocked if the editors at “D Magazine” didn’t spot the problem and let it go to press knowing full well the controversy would generate a ten-gallon hat full of publicity.) But, as I know all too well, crossing the line – whether accidentally or with a crystal-clear awareness that you’ll piss people off – is simply the price any writer occasionally has to pay for daring to say exactly what they think.
I hope this doesn’t put a damper on Feherty’s flair for fun language or willingness to push the outside of the envelope. I also hope this isn’t one more thing that puts golf on the radar scope of politicians who already don’t like us much. I won’t name names (OK, they rhyme with “Belowsi” and “Sneed”), but we really don’t need to be under the regulatory microscope when the market is this soft.
Yet, if keeping a low profile demands that we succumb to the PC cops every time someone in our business speaks his or her mind, then damn the torpedoes. After all, as a far more notable liberal political thinker, Monsieur Voltaire, once said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
