The Blame Game

Mr. "Dubya" Bush is quoted as saying he "probably could have done things better," but I disagree with that phrasing, as well as that perspective. We may do things differently, but we have no way of knowing whether the outcome will be better/ worse/ the same until after the fact. Hence, perhaps President Bush could have done things differently, but the results could have been far worse as a result.

Monday night quarterbacks always believe they could have won the Sunday afternoon football game, but they need to suit up and be on the field Sunday in order to have the opportunity to be in the game. Could they have done a better job than the team on the field? Maybe/maybe not: they could have played the game differently, but that would have allowed the other team to respond differently, and we would have had a different ball game -- but not necessarily different outcomes.

I also don't know why another Texan, of Dallas Cowboy owner's fame, fired his coach. The coach wasn't on the field throwing passes, blocking linemen, driving for a first down, kicking field goals, so why fire him? There are a dozen different coaches on a team, each coach empowered to do the best job s/he can do with the athletes on the roster. There are no guarantees that the team will perform to the expectations of the coaches, the media, or the owner! Yeah, yeah, yeah: it's the old the pitcher wins the baseball game, but I don't agree with that, either!! The team does the job, or it doesn't do the job, on the field, but the coach is confined to the sidelines. Throwing lots of money at a team doesn't buy a winning season: it simply assures that the owner is going to think that how much s/he pays the athletes assures success on the field.

In education, when students fail a class or don't pass the mandated exit exam, it's perceived to be the teacher's fault. I dare anyone who spends one full year in a room filled with 40 non-motivated high school sophomores 5 times a week for a 55-minute period of time to believe that it is the teacher's fault. It's never just one person who makes or breaks a deal, especially if the other side of the deal has absolutely no buy-in to the process or the outcome. The schools provide the information, but the student has to be an active part of the learning process. Sending texts, listening to I-Pods, updating one's Facebook page, tuning out what's around them because it's "boring" are all student strategies to opt out of whatever is going on around them that the do not want to do, so they will not do. Poor kids: no one is teaching them!

Presidents, athletes, teachers, parents do the best job they can do with the information provided to them at a time when they have to make tough decisions that can go either way. Sometimes, they score a touchdown and sometimes they fumble, while other times, the opposing team takes a goal-line stance and holds the line. It's a process, not an event, so we need to accept that sometimes, we'd all love to go back for a do-over, but that's not reality. Put life into the context of living it and move on.