When Making Judgments About Our Leaders and Others

Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist James Reston (1909-1995) wrote in his memoirs about a trap we can fall into when judging others. He related how his wife, Sally, help to temper his comments and writing. It’s a trap that we most easily fall into when we are overly focused on our own agenda or frustrated over simply not getting our own way. It’s good advice for any of us to keep in mind when we are getting ready to air our opinion.

One of the blind spots of reporters is that after a while we are inclined to forget that officials are people. Preoccupied with issues, we come to regard them as liberals or conservatives, honest or crooked, but seldom as ordinary folk who have wives and children and cry when they’re hurt. Sally was always saving me from this folly. She knew a lot of these official families and knew also when their kids were sick or flunking out of school or fiddling with drugs. Thus when some political luminary seemed to be in a slump, talking more nonsense than usual, she would say maybe he was worrying about the family, or, as I was inclined to believe, about his own wandering and wayward habits. Still it was useful to be reminded that these headline characters have things to worry about other than the national debt—their own debts, for example.