By Jim Hagarty
2006
I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately because it has become increasingly clear to me that there is someone out there who doesn’t like me. I mean, someone who really doesn’t like me. I have only met the guy once and can’t imagine what I might have done to offend him so, but there is no doubt I’m just not his type of guy.
On paper, anyway, this just shouldn’t be. We both have a lot in common. We were both born in Ontario in the fifties. We were both skinny as flagpoles as kids. We chose solitary sports in high school, both of us becoming cross-country runners. We both tended towards the “brainiac” end of the personality spectrum (though my marks never quite confirmed that), and wouldn’t have put up an argument if you had called us shy. We grew up, married attractive women and both have a son and a daughter, our sons born the same year, our daughters two years apart. So far, so good.
But at some point, our paths diverged. He decided to try changing the world through politics, I stumbled into journalism. And now, he doesn’t much like me. Politicians, you see, have coiffed hair, wear neat suits, choose their words carefully and smile at you when they’d rather run your head into a wall. Journalists are uncouth, unkempt, disrespectful loudmouths who are pretty sure it hasn’t been a good day if they haven’t offended somebody, somewhere. Journalists can never get elected (and rightfully so) to anything more significant than the Health and Safety Committee at work and it’s doubtful they are even qualified for that. Politicians couldn’t write an unbiased story or column if they were promised a lifetime of free manicures to do so.
To sum up, in spite of our various similarities, the directions our lives have taken have landed me and the guy about whom I write on opposite sides of a growing divide, and I don’t know what to do to bridge the gap. I can’t grow a set of manners overnight and l’m pretty sure he can’t learn to be rude and chronically unfeeling.
Our basic trouble seems to beg for treatment at a good audiology clinic. When he says privacy, I hear secrecy. When he says restrictions on media access, I hear censorship. When he says focus on key priorities, I hear gag orders.
But there’s another major difference between this guy and me. He’s a lot smarter than I am. He’s figured out that practically no politician ever lost out too badly beating up on journalists (just as a lot of us make our if livings returning the favour). He knows people won’t care too much if he trashes us all day long because every poll ever taken in recent years has shown politicians, journalists and lawyers all fighting hard for the bottom spot on the list of most trusted professionals in society.
But it’s a funny thing, you know. Come election time, politicians have a way of seeing how wrong they’ve been all along about us rabblerousers and they seek to mend our relationships. They call us up, invite us to fancy dinners and campaign speeches. They ask us along to walk with them as they knock on doors, and take pictures of them as they try to look casual in their suits on a hot summer day, dribbling a kid’s basketball in a stranger’s driveway.
Invited to a special event is how I got to meet the Prime Minister of Canada last time he was in town. Come on out, said his “handlers” – that’s what I need in my life is some handlers – and get to know him. So I did. I shook his hand. Asked him a couple of questions. Took a few photos of him. But I didn’t get to know Stephen Harper till he became prime minister. My suspicion is, I’m about to find out all about him the hard way.
