As the baseball season winds down in the freezing rain, I think back to the beginning of the season when I made my own baseball comeback. This was the season that I forced myself to enjoy baseball again. I listened to sports radio where the Mets and Yankees were discussed endlessly. My mind was filled with the gnashing and meandering of sports fans. And more than anything, the prognostications of sports pundits.
How sure they all were about the outcomes for each team and each player. How wrong they were.
And then I made the connection to the political pundits. Here they were again. Telling us what was going to happen and how wrong they were.
I'm not talking about just the pea-brained, cable-news pundits. I'm talking about the big guys with their best-selling books. Wrong. All wrong. Well-intentioned (I like to give the benefit of the doubt when I can) but wrong.
All wrong. From the beginning.
The press was wrong because it was so excited about going off to war.
The intellectuals were wrong because... well that's not why I'm here. They were just wrong. But it's one thing to go on air or in the paper and say the Yankees will win it in 4 games; and it's another thing to say that Iraq will be the beginning of a democratic wave.
But for now - I can only suggest that we have an overarching need to know what is going to happen next. And this need for soothsayers is as old as delphi, maybe older. And I'm not against knowing what will happen next, but I would like to propose some sort of regulations. If you are going to prognosticate for a living, then you should be made to wear an electronic sign which shows your current won/loss percentage.
It's sort of like the eBay customer satisfaction rating.
I wouldn't take it too far. Politicians would be forced to wear the soothsayer rating label, but only while they're running for office. Once elected the electronic label will have to be removed for the good of the country.
Like they always say when we fail at something - if we can put a man on the moon - why not soothsayer badges?
Or as some have said before, badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges.
