Intelligence is not necessarily a factor in just don’t getting it. Take economists [insert Henny Youngman reference here]. They don’t understand why, given the economy’s robust GNP growth, most Canadians do not feel they’re benefiting from the current economic boom. If they would return to the front page of their Report on Business, they might notice that executive compensation in Canada is soaring
Hmm…good times for business elite, for the average Canadian, not so much…
It’s not that economists don’t seem to be able to connect huge honking dots. It’s that they just don’t get it complete with charts, graphs and a 500 page study explaining why it’s sound public policy that you’re just not getting it.
Or, consider David Grightmire, who was killed when a stray bit of ash from his cigarette ignited the oxygen tank he was hooked up to in order to help battle emphysema. When people told him smoking was going to kill him, he obviously didn’t get it.
If there was a just don’t get it hall of fame, President George W. Bush would get his own wing. Possibly his own building.
Every child knows that when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, you look down at the floor a lot, red-faced, and apologize with as much sincerity as you can muster. Not George. When he was caught authorizing wiretaps in contravention of the law saying he had to get court approval, he essentially said he had the right to do it (“What part of war President don’t you understand?”) and chastised the person who leaked it to the press.
Good move, slick. It’s like telling your mother that she should feel guilty about catching you with your hand in the cookie jar. Oh, that will keep her from grounding you for a week or two.
When it comes to just don’t get it, Bush deserves to be given the first lifetime achievement award.
Meanwhile, a room in the just don’t get it hall of fame has to be reserved for Stephen Harper, who argued that Quebec would be more likely to stay in Confederation if a Conservative government was elected. The likelihood that the Tories will not win a single seat in Quebec obviously didn’t enter into his thinking. Here’s a man who just doesn’t get it in both official languages.
Then, he announced that he expected the campaign would soon get dirty. Soon? Without citing any evidence, Harper linked the Liberal Party to organized crime and, when asked to apologize for that and other comments, said he was used to taking cheap shots, so the Liberals should get used to it, too. Harper gets points for proving that he has the biggest cojones in the room, but loses them back for just not getting the fact that you need more than that to be Prime Minister.
Harper’s room could be right next door to Prime Minister Paul Martin’s. It’s not just that Martin berates the United States for not signing onto the Kyoto Protocol when, even though Canada has signed the international treaty, our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are actually worse than that of the Americans. It’s not even that Martin promotes himself as a champion of Canada even though, as owner of Canada Steamships Lines, he prefers to fly the flag of the Bahamas…Liberia…Vanuatu…any country, it would seem, but Canada.
No, the problem with Paul Martin is that he thinks nobody will notice. Inattentiveness is a contributing factor to just don’t get itness, but I’m not sure how to characterize somebody who presumes the inattentiveness of an entire nation.
Speaking of the entire nation, what can one say about people who rushed out to buy guns after Martin proposed to outlaw them entirely? The solution to gun violence is to make more guns available to people? Really? That’s like saying the way to lose weight is to eat more fatty and deep fried foods. It’s like saying the way to get out of debt is to get more credit cards to max out. It’s like saying the solution to just not getting it is to hit yourself in the head repeatedly with a blunt instrument so that you kill sufficient brain cells to ensure – well, I think you can see where I’m going with this.
Those of you who just do get it.