Senior Viewpoint
Dick Steinberg has resided in the city of Brookfield for 35 years. He served 34 years as municipal judge and has been an attorney for 50 years. He enjoys tennis, golf, biking and creative writing, which includes legal issues, sports, government and people.
He'd love to hear from you. Click here to send him an e-mail.
The Perils of Public Office
The Perils of Public Office are so many that well qualified people chose not to venture out and take the risk of personal attack on their integrity.
With high speed communications such as cell phones, twitters, sound bites, blogs, websites and more too numerous to mention the personal life of a candidate or incumbent public office holder is subject to ridicule and mockery.
The problem is that much of that quickly gathered information is at best an ill thought out rumor or a well planned distortion of the facts. It is unfortunate that some people seek these methods to be critical of the person and/or the issues at hand.
This is not limited to federal elections by any means. For decades local elections have thrived on the rumor and the distortion of facts. Sadly, there are people who believe because of the source and fail to check out the real truth.
In local politics it is much easier to spread these baseless stories by neighbors, emails, twitters, social groups, coffee clutches and the old cell/tele/phone. The discussion starts with "Did you hear", "someone told me", "everyone knows", etc.etc.
It takes a special person and a special commitment for a person to seek public office. Most of them can be reached by one form of communication or another. During the next election cycle direct you question or comment directly to ther candidate or public office holder. And please quote the response correctly.
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