Look, anyone who takes the time to blog about public policy issues -- yours truly included -- probably cares a great deal about the underlying policies and the values that are often driving these debates. We all tend to give short shrift to the value preferences of others and assume that we're on the side of what is just and fair. More often than not, though, we just have different values and place a greater priority on some values than others (usually a preference for liberty over equality or vice versa).
Occasionally, it helps to take a step back and remember that as important as we all make this stuff out to be, it pales in comparison to the actual lives that we have the most influence over: our friends and family. Why carry around bitterness about what a politician who, even if he wanted to change the world and remake it in a way you find objectionable, doesn't really have the power to do anything that's likely to change your life in a meaningful way.
So when I see a story like this, my overriding reaction is one of pity.
Oppo Research on News Editors
When you start conducting opposition research and digging for the bones in the closets of middle management at a company like Fox News, you should probably re-think how much time you spend following politics and allow for the possibility that you're taking things a little too personally. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether it's worth it, and relatedly, whether that emotional energy could be directed to a more productive endeavor.
Life is just too short to carry that level of bitterness around. And for what?
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