My Personal Side

By Craig Hastings
A question for the guys out there; have you ever had a past girlfriend tear up a note, card, letter, etc. while you’re standing there? The point to be made: “Take that you piece of this and that!” “Get out of my life forever because I hate you!” Yeah, been there and experienced that a few times in my life. All of these past experiences were just that; in my past and long forgotten until… Until the moment President Trump spoke his very last word of his State of Union Address last Tuesday night. I had watched every moment and heard every word of the address. Then it happened; Nancy Pelosi, The Speaker of The United States House of Representatives, in a deliberate and berating act, tore in halves the printed pages of the State of the Union Address President Trump had handed her before he spoke. The very same Nancy Pelosi that has for three years scolded and scoffed publicly most all things President Trump has said. She has called him childish, rude, unpresidential, and Wednesday she said she believed him to be “sedated” while giving his address to the nation; to the world.

I had horrible flashbacks from thirty years ago (and other years) when Nancy Pelosi stood up, gathered a few pages in hand, slightly reaching out towards the President, (as if he was her boyfriend or something) and tore those pages in halves for all the world to witness. Never, ever, would I have predicted such a vile act from a person touted to us all of these years to be someone of unprecedented professionalism, master politician, and dedicated to an established proper etiquette of all past and present members of Congress. Has President Trump fried Representative Pelosi’s last nerve, finally, on this night!? I think so. So now she has been taking heat from her own fellow democrats for her bad judgment. I’m sure at the time she believed she was really going to show that nasty Trump guy who was really large and in charge. But once again, it was a failed effort brought on from her anger and hatred of this President.

She defended her tantrum stating it was partially done because the President ignored her outreached hand to shake the President’s hand when he approached the podium. A few things to note of her defense, one; The President didn’t shake Vice President Pence’s hand, Two; Pelosi intentionally didn’t announce to the audience upon President Trump’s arrival to the podium the statement of arrival of a president that has for decades been done. Three; and finally, we learned today that Pelosi had been practicing prior to the end of the address just how many pages she had the strength to tear in half at one time. Some reports stated she gave each page a primer tear. As we witnessed I believe it took four attempts to rip them all. She did manage to then pick the pile up as one stack and throw them back down in disgust on the table in front of her chair. A movement similar to one that some of my past teachers had done after grading one of my own homework assignments. Way too many flashbacks from my past this night. Kudos to Nancy for making sure she didn’t pick up more pages than she could tear at one time. It certainly would have been embarrassing had she gotten stuck struggling to tear too many pages in half at once and had to ask for help from the Vice President. I think it was maybe three pages at a time that she was able to tear her way through in one effort.

So here we sit, the hard working peasants and servants to the throne watching the elitists that govern our simple lives acting like the children we raise. We elected characters of a mix of mostly water and a few drops of oil and expected them to mix and meld into something that should be making all of our lives better. What do we do? In nine months there is this thing called The General Election. At the end of this election day will we go back to the days when the curtains were always drawn so we couldn’t see what was going on in Washington or; will tear the curtains completely down for all to see everything happening in Washington DC? One way or another I pray for the later because we’ve learned in the past three years what has for decades been secretly kept hidden from us angers me. Did any of us realize just how much we didn’t matter? Didn’t we all believe the knowledge and abilities of those in Washington were far beyond any we could ever achieve? And here today we sit and watch these people we’ve put on pedestals for our entire lives behave like children, some speak as though they achieved only a sixth grade education, and some dress like last year’s traveling circus that came through town.

I wish I could say I’m over it but I’m not. I’m a little anxious and a little afraid of what will happen next. But for the moment it’s the greatest show on earth! Grab a bag of popcorn and a cold drink, relax in your favorite chair, (for me it’s my bed) and watch your tax dollars being wasted away by adult children on a playground called Washington DC.

(The views and opinions expressed in the submitted columns are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Journal.)