Randon Acts of Writing: Assigning blame

By Craig Carter
Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:06 AM PDT

As I watched the video footage of the bridge collapse in Minnesota, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before the finger-pointing began. It didn’t take long.

Within 24 hours of the tragedy, politicians and pundits were busy as blame-assigning little bees, pointing their whiny little fingers.

It’s the federal government’s fault, it’s the state government’s fault, it’s the fault of the contractor that was doing maintenance work on the bridge, it’s Bill Clinton’s fault, it’s George W. Bush’s fault. Someone has to be blamed.

Yep, that’s how we solve problems these days. Whenever something bad happens, a lot of Americans have this altogether moronic belief that assigning blame solves the problem.

A great example of how idiotic this belief really is can be found in the way city, state and federal officials, along with the media, reacted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

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For days on end, those poor people sweltered, suffered and, tragically, some died while federal officials spent all their time trying to pin the blame on the state officials. State officials tried to pin the blame on city officials, and city officials tried to blame both the federal officials and state officials, creating, in effect, what had to be the most perverse circle of ineptitude and pitiful behavior ever displayed by so-called leaders.

Worse than that, though, was the way the media played the role of throwing gasoline on the fire with their endless conjecture as to just who was to blame.

In the end, the only voice of sanity in the days following that horrible tragedy came from jazz musician Harry Connick Jr., who appeared on the Today Show to point out to the media and the world at large that, while they were busy trying to finger someone for the tragedy, the victims of the tragedy were in deep trouble that was getting deeper by the minute.

The response from the interviewer, of course, was pretty much, “That’s real nice, Harry, but dear man, don’t you realize nothing good can come of tragedy until blame has been assigned?”

Sadly, it’s years later, and city, state and federal officials, along with the media, are still trying to pin the blame for what happened in New Orleans on someone. Anyone.

Surely it couldn’t be that we live in an imperfect world, and the best way to react to tragedy is to learn from mistakes that may have been made to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Oh, no!

We can’t make sense on that level. We have to assign blame, and that’s all there is to it because, as I said before, lots of Americans are of the altogether moronic opinion that the simple act of assigning blame puts an end to any and every problem that may arise.

Sadly, that’s how politically motivated we are. I mean, you know I’m not exactly a big fan of President Bush, but the way some of my fellow liberals still whine about how he was completely to blame for what happened in New Orleans would be hilarious if it wasn’t so misguided and stupid. As if we expected the president to hold back all that water with his bare hands or something.

So in the end, I’m certain there will be plenty of blame to go around in regard to the Minnesota tragedy. The bridge was built by the federal government, maintained by the state government and presided over by city government.

However, just you wait and see. Talk radio, cable news and the entire American political machine will soon be tied in knots, trying to assign blame.

Hopefully, someone will have the sense to say, “Uh, people, it really doesn’t matter who’s to blame. Why don’t we just fix it and move on?”

That would make sense, though, and if there’s one thing we absolutely will not abide in times of crisis, it’s sense.