5 Degrees Off Center

 

There’s not a whole lot on TV at 5 AM, except “Three Stooges�?reruns and news.   One particular morning I was watching the president give a televised speech, a replay of the one he gave two nights ago.  He was somewhere in the boughs of the Capitol Building, I suppose.  Behind him were the leaders of congress and, to his front, he was speaking to the esteemed members of congress and the senate, well most of them anyway; after all, summertime on the coast and in Europe should not be missed, even if it is your job to be there. 

Also in the audience were various members of the military and various guests of all the DC royalty, which, by the way, is anyone that is the politically correct flavor of the day.

At one point the president made a “bullet�?comment.  It must have been a punch line to some part of his speech,  because the audience erupted in applause.  The camera behind the podium took over the view and I noticed something odd.  There was a larger aisle in the middle of the room, that divided the audience on the floor and all the people on the left side of that aisle were cheering like college students, whose team just scored the winning touch down at the homecoming game. 

Those on the right looked like some one just killed their favorite puppy.  The camera zeroed in on one the somber looking ones on the right, the lauded senator from Massachusetts.  He was scratching the side of his nose with his index and fore fingers.  (Hmm, looks like the way I, discreetly, flipped some one off when I was in Junior high school.  Zounds!  The senator wouldn’t be so sophomoric, would he?) 

I continued listening passively while I shaved and carried on a conversation with this old man that lives in my mirror. (Now, God only knows, who this old fart is.  All I’m sure of is, that he has been living in my mirror for the five years I’ve lived here.  But, he listens politely as I talk though.)  I was about to mention my day’s itinerary when something occurred to me. 

Now, hold on just a damned minute there, Teddy.  And don’t snap your suspenders, you might hurt yourself.  Let’s back those images up just a bit and freeze-frame right there.  I’ll be damned!  If Senator Kennedy stood and faced me he would be�?on the left, his left!  Is that it?  I mean, all my adult life I have heard about the left wing liberals and the right wing conservatives�?Left side�?right side�?Is that really where it comes from, that center aisle down the middle of a room under the Rotunda?  Left wing�?right wing?  The liberal, (democrats) on the left side and the conservative, (republicans), on the right, and the rest peppered in where they are comfy?  Have I really missed it all these years?

(The old man in the mirror nodded in agreement.)

I don’t believe this.  So�?what it all boils down to is this.  A little more than 500 of the most powerful people in the world; the same 500 people that jump up-and-down and insist that we come together as a United country, the same 500 people that, constantly, tell us that we must come together as a United World, can’t even sit together in the same room?  Well, I’ll be dipped!  That’s a hell of an example for you. 

 

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