Nothing attracts a crowd like a good old fashioned whoopin’. Recall elementary school when that one kid got caught putting gum on the teacher’s chair or hurled pencils across the room when her back was turned. Once the perp was identified the classroom buzzed like a World Cup match, anticipating the sentence to follow. Whispers grew to loud conversations in disregard for the teacher’s demands for order. Adrenaline levels spiked and the room lurched and jumped. As the young deviant was led outside the classroom the children morphed into hyenas frenzied by a fresh kill.
Only the returning troublemaker’s tearful sobs and painful countenance subdued the room. Guilt-ridden, they recalled that this brave soul risked punishment for their benefit. Some empathized, recognizing they could suffer the same fate if they ever got caught.
Washington resembles grade school in oh so many ways. Like school children bored with their work, Washingtonians plod through their lives waiting for someone to say something they shouldn’t or touch someone they shouldn’t. Then the fun begins.
General Stanley McChrystal, living outside the Beltway, may not even be aware of the giddy press corps and knife-wielding politicos awaiting his arrival. The president only agitates the rabid with the promise of a meeting. Forget the testimony. They have all the evidence they need and begin to assemble the guillotine.
A sequence of predictable events will follow the general’s arrival at the Oval Office. Everyone will watch gleefully as the president sends the general to the Rose Garden to pick a switch. We hope it’s from a rosebush. Then the general will assume the position. Then the general will leave. Forever.
Then what? Our adrenaline rush, our moment of excitement will fade. The crowds will disperse. We’ll go back to work and car pools and laundry and summer vacation. Maybe we’ll talk about the oil spill. Maybe. Deep inside we may recognize a sliver of shame. Shame for enjoying anticipating and then viewing a beating. Shame for a high received while watching a distinguished military career involuntarily ended.
As we grow older we change in obvious ways: size, intellectual pursuits, responsibilities. We never really move beyond the childish pleasures. Some things just remain funny: an unsuspected punch to the groin, or poop jokes. Of course, watching someone dig their own grave never loses its juvenile appeal. At some point those pleasures have to be measured against the severity of consequential events – a war, an unprecedented environmental disaster, unemployment. Then we may recognize those pleasures for what they are – fleeting distractions. Maybe on that day we’ll focus our energy, as adults, on the potentially ruinous problems facing our nation.
Jeff Sural is an attorney working in Washington, D.C.