Try to remember....

An exercise for everyone who is convinced that Vice President Cheney deliberately lied in saying that he'd never met Sen. Edwards prior to last night's debate:

If you go to conventions, write down the names of everyone you've ever met at a party at a convention. Even once. Ever. And no fair checking your file of business cards or the contact list in your PDA.

If you are a parent, correctly name and identify every other parent you've ever been in the same room with at a Parents' Night or similar event at your child's school.

Dig up your high school and/or college yearbook. How many of the kids in your graduating class would you recognize if you ran into them today? (And how many of them would you swear you never even saw once even though you were theoretically in the same school for several consecutive years?)

If you work for a company that employs more than 100 people, ask yourself how many of them you can call by name, and how many you would recognize in the checkout line at the supermarket.

(Lest anyone misconstrue: this has nothing to do with the political merits of either candidate. I am merely astonished at the rush to assume malice in this instance when fallible memory is the far more obvious -- and innocent -- explanation.)

Try to remember....

An exercise for everyone who is convinced that Vice President Cheney deliberately lied in saying that he'd never met Sen. Edwards prior to last night's debate:

If you go to conventions, write down the names of everyone you've ever met at a party at a convention. Even once. Ever. And no fair checking your file of business cards or the contact list in your PDA.

If you are a parent, correctly name and identify every other parent you've ever been in the same room with at a Parents' Night or similar event at your child's school.

Dig up your high school and/or college yearbook. How many of the kids in your graduating class would you recognize if you ran into them today? (And how many of them would you swear you never even saw once even though you were theoretically in the same school for several consecutive years?)

If you work for a company that employs more than 100 people, ask yourself how many of them you can call by name, and how many you would recognize in the checkout line at the supermarket.

(Lest anyone misconstrue: this has nothing to do with the political merits of either candidate. I am merely astonished at the rush to assume malice in this instance when fallible memory is the far more obvious -- and innocent -- explanation.)