The news has been replete lately with public figures who just want to move on. First we had the inflatable Mark McGuire who, unlike his recent self flagellation, told Congress in 2005 "I'm not here to talk about the past". Wise choice in that McGuire's past included a cornucopia of performance-enhancing drugs. Considering McGuire's recent performance for Bob Costas (Mark has obviously traded steroids for botox and #10 pancake) he might have been better off to stay in the medicine closet. His assertion that the drugs he ingested, injected and ran through barefoot had no effect on his home run production sounded as ridiculous as suggesting that air pressure has no discernible effect on the bounce capability of a basketball.
McGuire apparently intended, with his non-testimony before Congress, that he would blithely move on to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Clearly Mr. McGuire's ego was as inflated as his biceps and his hat size. The baseball writers who guard the Hall in Cooperstown with their votes take a dim view of players who owe their statistic excellence to Johnson & Johnson and Merck rather than to Spalding or Hillerich and Bradsby. Mark McGuire's best chance for admission to the Hall of Fame will be if they create a Steroids/HGH wing. Guests will include Sammy(my English fails me under oath) Sosa and Bobby ('roids made me strong as a horse but also made me a horse's ass) Bonds. Naturally the wing will have an inflatable roof.
Our second guest in the "let's not dwell on the past" spotlight is John McCain. The former Republican Presidential Candidate was interviewed this week regarding revelations in the new book "Game Changer". According to sources in the book, McCain knew more about the valet at the Phoenician Hotel than he did about the Kewpie doll he nominated for Vice President. When asked about the appalling lack of vetting regarding Sister Sarah, McCain smiled that "edge of Alzheimer's" smile he has perfected and told Matt Lauer "I'm not going to comment on things that happened over a year ago." There's a 50/50 chance that he won't comment because he can't remember. If you proposed a woman for national office who thinks Morocco is a musical instrument or that Einstein is famous for his bagel recipe, you'd want to forget all about it, too. Unfortunately, the vapid, empty-headed, former Miss Wasilla didn't disappear back into the tundra after the votes were counted. Like that pizza you ate too late at night Ms. Palin has regurgitated all over the American landscape.
Interestingly, McCain doesn't mind living in the past when the past includes his impressive war record or his time as U.S. Senator. His selective amnesia (from August to November, 2008) is no doubt triggered by the grim reminder that Sarah Palin was not Joe Lieberman in drag. She's more like Glen Beck in glasses. If I'd turned Sarah Palin loose on this unsuspecting world, I'd change the subject also.
Anyway, the moral of the story is if you have done something heinous or just stupid and you are called to task, merely indicate that you don't want to dwell on the past. This defense might have served several characters in history quite well. Imagine if George Armstrong Custer had lived to stand trial for incompetence. As he was picking arrows out of his epaulets he might have stood fully erect and proclaimed "Yes I did recklessly lead 208 men to their death along the Little Big Horn River in 1876 but I prefer not to dwell on the sins of the past..." This might even work for Karl Rove, if only we could forget him.
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