Mistakes

Shortly after 9-11, I went to a Muslim chat room and continued going there 3 or 4 times per week for over ten years. The others in the room expected me to defend the United States on every issue and I surprised them when I did not. I told them that during the cold war the US made friends with a lot of bad people. Our rule was that if you oppose the USSR then you are acceptable. I recall when Mrs. Kirkpatrick, our ambassador to the UN, said of one of the bad guys,” he may be a dictator but he is our dictator”. I willingly admitted that the US has made many mistakes and we are still paying the price for those in the view of world opinion. I also pointed out the many positive things that the US has accomplished. I bring this up at this time because I found similar thinking when it comes to the presidential candidate for whom people voted. They often feel obligated to defend everything the candidate did and said. People should understand that it would be next to impossible to find a candidate who did and said everything they wanted and when something is not right in their opinion they should just say so.