A Strange Week in Local Journalism

This week I covered two stories in Woburn, Mass. One was uplifting, the other baffling.

Monday I attended the MLK Luncheon sponsored by St. John's Baptist Church. Woburn is a very white place, and I've met few black residents while covering government and school functions. So I was disappointed that most of the church members at the event were not actually from Woburn, although some had lived there at one time.

The keynote speaker attended college at the height of the Civil Rights movement and went to jail for nonviolent protests. He lived with real injustices, like having to eat in the back room even at the restaurant where he worked. He went on to have a great career as an engineer and an entrepreneur and to provide a life of privilege for his children and grandchildren. But he still had a catch in his voice when he talked about those days.

He had paved the way to equality and then watched Obama take that road to the White House. I can't imagine what that felt like.

And it must have been bitter these past few months as support for health care reform dwindled along with support for Obama, whose star dimmed so quickly. This time last year, all things seemed possible, but now, Obama is just another disappointing politician.

He's so disappointing that a virtually unknown conservative Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat in the U.S. Senate yesterday. That was the second story I covered.

Speaking to voters as they left the polls, I made a disturbing discovery. People who voted for Martha Coakley identified specific reasons why: health care, gay marriage, education. People who voted for Scott Brown talked in generalities: a fresh new face, seems like an intelligent guy, no more business as usual. They knew little or nothing about his positions on the issues, or they didn't want to tell a reporter that they didn't want health care reform or gay marriage.

Even Brown volunteers had nothing to say about issues. The only Republican who actually mentioned issues to me was the chairman of the local committee. He said that people want health care reform, but they are worried that the Democrats have come up with the wrong plan.

As for the Democrats, their Coakley campaign broke all records for arrogance and incompetence, the very charges they recently leveled against George W. Bush.

Bush is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he still deserved the respect of the office, and we liberals did not give that to him.

My sister Gerry pointed that out last month. Hearing people say that Obama is not their president and seeing him heckled by a congressman during a speech, she began to question some of the personal attacks against Bush when he was president.

And she made me think, too. It reminded me of a time at work when a co-worker, promoted to his Peter Principle level of incompetence, was really struggling. Instead of helping him, everybody gave him a hard time, including me. We were angry that he made our jobs harder. But it started to turn into bullying. That's when two of us started correcting instead of criticizing, and he improved.

I felt really horrible when I saw my complicity in what was happening to that guy, and that feeling came back when Gerry talked about liberals' treatment of Bush.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't make fun of the President. That is our privilege, even our obligation. But it has to come with some respect for the office.