I Know You Are, But What Am I?

When I was in kindergarten, I was taught that I should be careful when pointing accusingly at others as there were always four fingers pointing back at me.

That playground adage keeps coming to mind this week as I read the flood of histrionic, Henny Penny reactions to WikiLeaks’ latest document release. “How could he?!” “TRAITOR!!!!” “Crucify Him!” Of course, those screaming the loudest and with the most vitriol are the very ones who should be most worried about the four fingers pointing back at them. Those who served in the G.W. Bush Administration ought to be worried about further impetus for world leaders to pursue prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Obama Administration—particularly the Holder “Justice” Department—should be worried about their complicity in covering up those crimes, not to mention being called into account for crimes of their own. The Crime Bosses of the world financial institutions should be running scared lest their engineering of—and handsomely profiting from—the collapsed economy be brought into the light of day.

Congressmen and women have reason to be worried about having to answer to their constituents (I’m talking about the ones who cast the votes, not the ones who fund their campaigns) for their utter abdication of their duties over the past decade. And, perhaps most of all, the Mavens of the Mainstream Media and the Political Pontificators, Pundits, and Pretenders ought to be thoroughly humiliated (and remorseful) that almost everything they’ve said so far in this century has been profoundly wrong—urging us into disastrous debacles—and that it took a foreigner to do what they were too cowardly (or lacked the moral or mental capacity) to do.

So the next time you see someone waving his flag while railing against the evils of transparency and accountability in government and hurling accusations at Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, you might think about tracing the path of those other four fingers.