Though it's a little far afield from life in Wrangell, there is a life lesson in the controversy over President Joe Biden's choice to run the federal Office of Management and Budget.
A lesson to keep your thumbs at your side, unless you're hitchhiking.
The nominee, Neera Tanden, is in jeopardy of losing Senate confirmation because of tweets she sent while in a previous job as chief executive officer at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress. The tweets were nasty, political jabs, mostly at Republican U.S. senators, but she thumbed her Twitter account at Democrats, too.
Tanden's attacks were sharply pointed, though accurate and certainly more civil than President Donald Trump's notoriously vindictive, deceitful, crude-and-rude tweets.
But now, as senators consider whether to approve Tanden's nomination to run the federal budget office, for which she appears well qualified, some of her past tweets have come home to roost. At least one Democrat and several Republicans have said they will oppose her nomination.
No doubt, even if Tanden had never tweeted anything more controversial than her favorite cookie recipe, multiple Republicans would have found some other contrived reason to oppose her nomination. Sadly, that is the world we live in, made worse by tweets, Facebook posts, hyper-partisan politics and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on inflammatory political campaigns.
All of which leads to the question: If you ever aspire to public office, if you want to work as a bipartisan leader, if you ever think you may need to sit across the table from someone you insulted with a tweet, why be so snotty in your snarky sneers? If your message is not going to make lives better for people, why blow up a bridge when a simple shaking of the roadway would serve the same purpose?
This is not just a political problem. Far too many "influencers" - the new name for celebrities who want to keep their name in lights and entrepreneurs who want to pitch their products - seem obsessed with tweeting their thoughts on most everything that revolves around the sun. They fill social media with their instant opinions. Who cares! And I don't use exclamation points lightly.
When you feel an urge to tell the world what you think, stop and think: Do people care? Will your opinion make your community better? Do you propose a solution or just want to make a point? Do you have anything better to do with your thumbs at the moment?
In an attempt to preserve her chances at the job, Tandem has apologized: "For those concerned about my rhetoric and my language, I'm sorry. ... I'm sorry for any hurt that they've caused."
Wouldn't it be better not to have anything to apologize for?
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