Let’s discuss the danger of the gotcha moment, henceforth known as the macaca moment. Do we need to be more forgiving of gaffes when we hear more? If we want the candidates to be more human do we need to accept their human falliblity?

The problem of human fallibility is not new to the era of online campaigning and blogging. For a long time, MSM journalists and opposing canddiates have done research into the past on candidates, looking for just this sort of “Macaca Moment” in which a candidate makes some sort of gaffe. Witness the broadcasting of President Bush’s comments to those next to him when he happened to me micced up.

Far too often we think some sort of mistake is an example of racism, sexism, or just plain mean heartedness. But mistakes are a part of human life and we cannot expect our leaders to be perfect or without error in their past. If we did, we would have to have canddiates raised in a monestary or convent and trotted out just prior to the race, muzzled to prevent misstatements and handled to within an inch of their lives. What result do we get, someone who has no concept of the problems faced by real people in teh real world. Not a very good trade off.

The difficulty is that modern technology has made the “Macaca Moment” easy to record and dessminate. That we in the blogosphere routinely aid and abet such dissemination does not make it news or newsworthy. In the end, it will be incumbent upon each blogger/reporter to judge for themselves whether one incident is worthy of reporting. I tend to think not.

But, sheesh, how long is that panel going to last? I hope you’ve got a good 5-6 hours!

Craig
craig@craigslist.org