One of my hobbies for the middle three decades of my life was a full contact martial art. Having one or ten or a thousand other people trying their best to smack you in the head teaches some interesting lessons, and this is the first.
Take. The. Cheap. Shot.
Follow me into the metaphor.
One of the odd things that happens in large group combats is the occasional complete failure of an opponent to maintain situational awareness. It just happens, all of a sudden one of your tough opponents does the wrong thing, hangs himself out in front of god and everybody totally unprotected. A lot of people don’t take the shot. It seems too easy, too cheap for such a victory. Inexperienced combatants, either out of a sense of fairness or pure disbelief often pass up these gifts from the gods of chaos and inattention.
Don’t. Take the cheap shot. Because there will be other opponents that you have to work for, others that push your limits to their utmost. There will be times when you need that energy. So when you get these gifts, take them.
There is a reason that I’m going down this rabbit hole. That reason has a Kenyan birth certificate and never pays it's taxes. Or, put a different way, P.T. Barnum would be considered an optimist in today’s political climate.
There are people that are swayed by long, well thought out arguments – the Fiore plays of American politics. But many, many more are convinced by Kenyan birth certificates, the etch-a-sketch, or “Don’t get sick...”. These are the people that are moved to vote by pictures of Obama with little Hitler mustaches photoshopped on.
American politics turns on the sound bite. Some are ineffective. For example, I think birtherism has run its course. Cheap Hitler comparisons mostly are a miss. Cheap shots are ineffective when they swing at lies. Going back to the martial analogy, it's like buying a feint. Basing politics on lies is ultimately less effective ( though the success of the swiftboat campaign still appalls me). But sometimes we get offered cheap shots at real targets, and we need to get better at taking them.
As my time becomes more available, I’m going to try to start writing diaries here. My focus is going to be on pointing out some of these easy targets, and hopefully providing enough backing that they stand up under scrutiny. We need to take the cheap shots. Take them convincingly, with flair, so the press repeats them, because we need the opposition to slow down and spend their energy guarding against their own gaffes.
Take the cheap shot. There is no such thing as a victory that is too easy.