The political season always reminds me of our obsession with catching people in infractions that can minimize their standing in the eyes of the voters. The problem with the gotchya mentality is that it usually backfires. It backfires because we’re all human, we’ve all blown it and we all have issues in our lives that would minimize our standing in the eyes of those around us.

Barack Obama plagiarized

Hillary Clinton didn’t congratulate Obama on his most recent victories soon enough

Michelle Obama doesn’t like her country

John McCain isn’t as ethical as he appears

All these statements are gotchya’s. I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t be accountable for their actions. i get it. I get it in my personal life and I get it in public life. But, the very fact of the matter is that the culture of looking for dirt in an attempt to diminish another person isn’t about accountability, it’s about opportunistic grandstanding.

All of use have problems and have blown it. All of us are bearing consequences for those issues. All of us should become more compassionate, not flimsy, but compassionate as a result. The fact that our culture is enamored by the dirt and talking about it endlessly, reveals something sad about our current condition and our need to change.