Ivan Rioufol: The Indecency Of Politicians, Trying To Display Their Humanity On Every Occasion

Here.

In this case, it is political figures eager to make statements — what statement need be made by a leader of a country, when there is a plane crash, or any other such disaster or loss of life? when did leaders of countries think they had to “offer condolences” the way Obama always does, or deplore the obviously deplorable? — after the latest plane crash, and to display the ready tear, to show that they  “feel” the pain of the families, and your pain, my pain, the collective pain, the all-god’s-chillun-got pain.

Ivan Rioufol suggests that a little more reserve, a little more pudeur, on the part of political figures is called for. He doesn’t think that Francois  Hollande had to “make a statement” on the Germanwings crash, nor does he have to go off on a plane trip with Merkel and Rajoy to view the scene of the accident. And the same criticism might be made, in a different key, of  Barack Obama who thinks he must make statements whenever something about blacks and whites comes up; there was Skip Gates on Ware Street; there was George Zimmermann’s neighborhood-watch struggle, in which Obama scandalously interfered, saying that if he, Obama, had a son, that son “would look like Trayvon,” there was the trumped-up “hands-up-don’t-shoot” farce at Ferguson, which required the Justice Department to finally admit that the Grand Jury was right, the policeman’s version supported by all the evidence, and “eyewitnesses” lied; and no doubt there will be others. Barack Obama should have said nothing at all about things at this level, and should have attended to affairs of state, rather than feel the need to make pronouncements, and express sympathy, sometimes misplaced, on such matters.