I accidentally listened to Wolf Blitzer on the way home from work tonight. At one point, as a teaser before a break, he said something like, “Our allies have joined the fight again ISIS. But is it too late?”
And I thought, “Why couldn’t he have just said, ‘Our allies have joined the fight again ISIS. Hooray! Isn’t that good news!'”
Why can’t we pause to celebrate good news, instead of immediately looking for the downside? Is naysaying really necessary?
I imagined how Wolf Blitzer, and other cable news anchors, would have treated other major stories.
“The allies have landed at Normandy. But have we walked into Hitler’s trap? We’ll talk to our experts…after the break.”
“Smallpox has been eradicated from the earth. We’ll examine the plight of scientists who are now out of work.”
“The Cold War has come to an end. Bad news for spy novelists like John Le Carre. Can the book industry survive?”
“George Washington defeats the British at Yorktown. But do we really think we can govern ourselves? We’ll talk to several experts who say we’ll regret this.”
“Jesus has ascended to heaven. What is he running away from? We’ll ask our roundtable.”
