Journalists took a beating this week.
While state Rep. Douglas Bruce Lee was giving a Rocky Mountain News photographer the boot, I was trying to stem the bleeding from a minor falangeical hemorrhage to my left index finger – more commonly known as a paper cut.
And there you have the common dangers most journalists face day in and day out – old, pudgy lawmakers with restless leg syndrome and sharp edges on paper. It’s not exactly “in the line of duty” around here.
Of course, Bruce picked the wrong person to kick. Taking aim at a journalist, let alone a photographer surrounded by a gaggle of another photographers – is akin to trying to give the Pope a wedgie – someone’s probably going to notice.
And so what started as a simple kick and not the most savage kicking in the history of the State Capitol, despite what the Denver media will tell you, has turned into a call for action.
Now, a special committee of, I presume, legislators who could be doing much better things with their time, will study this incident – conducting interviews, gathering evidence (hand over that shoe, Bruce), hunkering in a NFL replay booth to watch multiple angles of the kicking and having lots of long lunches.
When they are finished, they will determine – wait for it – that Bruce kicked a newspaper photographer. They may order he enroll in an anger management course or perhaps a martial arts class because that kick lacked any Ralph Macchio machismo.
Then taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief that their money was well spent when their state reps come marching home from the Capitol at the end of the session.
You may think I’m coming down on the side of Bruce. You’d be mistaken.
In fact, he sets a bad example for my daughter who we’ve repeatedly spoken to about not kicking or hitting.
So why don’t we use similar discipline with Bruce?
Put him in timeout.
Then, when he's ready to come out of the corner, he can apologize to the nice photographer and play with the other kids again.
Of course, if this special committee comes back with a recommendation of censure, then that will essentially be what happened.
The kick has happened, there is no going back for Bruce. I think the least many think he could do, count I among them, is to apologize. Even if his intent was to illustrate the importance of not interrupting prayer, he shouldn’t be above admitting he handled incorrectly.
But as Bruce awaits an apology from the media (Good luck, buddy, we’re the same folks who declared “Dewey defeats Truman”), we are required to brim with moral indignation. Our cup seems to overflow with a superseding knowledge of right and wrong.
And while we could do without the kicking at the Capitol or hair pulling or name calling and giggling for that matter, we could do without this overreaction just as well.
Good luck to that special committee. When you’re done with your work, I’ve got some grievances from elementary school that I wouldn’t mind having investigated.
