What have you got to say?

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the Alice of the color Alice Blue and the daughter of our 26th president, had a tongue that could caress and draw blood simultaneously. “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody,” she quipped, “come sit next to me.”

I wish I didn’t feel that way lately, but I do. The discourse of the day almost commands it. It’s a lamentable commentary on the gossip concerning all those amateurs flailing around our current president: the Chief Error Officer of his own administration.

Detrimental inexperience

Some have been kind enough to chalk up all the missteps to a lack of experience. And sensitivity. And, possibly, intelligence. Doesn’t matter. Great CEOs know that they should hire people smarter than they are at the jobs they’re expected to do… and then get out of their way and let them do it.

That assumes, of course, that the employees are qualified. Most of the current crop isn’t. And the hiring committee — the U.S. Senate — couldn’t tell. Not that much of the Senate is qualified either. The election winners simply lied much more convincingly (or their corporate backers did in all those Citizens United-permitted ads).

Truth or consequences

Mrs. Longworth, however, didn’t care for idle chat. The unsupported statements of a campaign ad or a late night tweet would have made her homicidal. When she wanted to hear something juicy, she wanted the truth. Why get riled up over rumors? It’s a total waste of energy and time.

Yet the 38% of the country that still believes in the President has no interest in facts if those facts don’t support the things they want to believe (or would force them to admit that they backed the wrong horse). It may be one of the few times that people are being skewered in public and think that the blood on the ground isn’t theirs.

Politics or rock ’n’ roll

That’s the power of political faith — the conviction that wishing makes it so. Even the Rolling Stones know you can’t always get what you want. Yet Mick and Keith may be slightly more optimistic, since they think you might get what you need.

My perspective’s different. I think you get what you deserve, at least initially. After that, you get what you accept. Yet if you’re smart, you won’t accept what the others deserve. And if you haven’t got anything nice to say about the ones who put us where we are, come sit next to me.