Why Would You Ever Go Off-Script?

In earlier centuries, politicians could say one thing in one gathering, something quite different in another gathering. The formula: Say what your audience wants to hear--even if it contradicts what you said to a different audience the day before. And no one would really know. They could stumble and misspeak and goof--and no one but the folks in that particular crowd would ever know.

But today? It's Twitter-Time! It's Blog-Time! It's 24/7-News Time! It's Facebook-Time! It's iPhone-Camera Time! It's Whatever-Time!

And every word a politician utters is like a top, waiting to be spun.

As a result, candor has become error. Any slip of the tongue (or mind) becomes grist for the mill, corn for the cattle, forbs for the sheep, pizza for the population ...

And a result of this? Well, we are encouraging politicians (and other public figures) to deliver lines from a script rather than speak--as Petruchio says in The Taming of the Shrew--"extempore, from my mother-wit" (2.1).

Unfortunately, so many of us come up a bit short in the "mother-wit" department--as Katherine counters in Shrew--"A witty mother! Witless else her son."

(And daughter, of course.)

So ... when public figures drop their scripts and speak "extempore," so often (so very, very often) they demonstrate their witlessness--and the blade of the social-media Cuisinart commences to whirl.

If I were a politician (not likely: Even I would not vote for me!), I don't think I would ever deviate from a carefully crafted script. Doing so is a slow form of suicide (unless, of course, you're You-Know-Who).

And so--in our swiftness to indict, judge, convict, condemn, and execute, we are encouraging our public figures to become mere deliverers of lines--the sort of person Macbeth alluded to in his speech about "life": "a poor player  / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more ..." (5.5).

We're a bit hypocritical, wouldn't you say? We allow ourselves countless mistakes, slips of the tongue, inadvertent cruelties, goofs, misjudgments, misadventures, but our public figures? They must be flawless! Not a single mispronounced word must pass their lips, not a single error of grammar or usage, not a single thoughtless thought. (Think of the careers of politicians that have ended with a single error.)

And so--in a way--we deserve to drink the salt water they serve us at our banquet of tears.