It’s Impossible to Chase Someone Who Isn’t Running

By Adrienne Ross – http://www.motivationtruth.com

“It’s physically impossible to chase someone who isn’t running.” This is my standard response to a student who comes barreling down the school hallway because so-and-so is chasing him. Today, I issued that same comment to a wildly running seventh grader, and I got the same look I always get, the lightbulb slowly coming on.

I had already intended to address the media’s obsession with Governor Palin’s “One Nation” bus tour, but no sooner had those words to the student come out of my mouth when a lightbulb came on for me.

It’s impossible to chase someone who isn’t running. I’ve uttered those words in reprimand to students for years. Have I been wrong all along? Well, if I believe the political talking heads, indeed I have. If I listen to the Bill O’Reillys, the Dick Morrises, the Charles Krauthammers of the world, Governor Palin isn’t running for President, for she doesn’t have what it takes. I reject that perspective, of course, as common sense Americans do. However, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that they are correct and she’s not going to run. Why, then, is she being chased? Nay, why is the media literally stalking her as she and her family are enjoying the historical sites of this great country? They’re checking into hotels she’s staying at, they’re engaging in what are essentially high speed chases down the highways, and they’re lurking overhead in helicopters.

Governor Palin has repeatedly said this tour is not a campaign tour. She’s proving wrong those who claim that she’s simply looking for attention; she hasn’t even released her travel schedule. She’s not setting up a microphone and making prepared speeches to a plethora of gatherers. She’s simply taking in the richness of America’s history, and the media can’t get enough. So here’s a private citizen who’s on a family vacation, one might say, and media members are underfoot–and overhead. Yet their narrative is that she’s totally irrelevant, unable to lead this country, and has no intentions to run. Why don’t they go chase the other people then, the ones who are running? Why not stick microphones in their faces, ask them if they’re playing with their heads, and tweet incessantly about their next move?

If I believe some of these so-called experts and these masters of the lamestream media who, according to their own imaginations, know everything about everything, Governor Palin is simply a passing fad, unfit for leadership, and certainly not running for President. It seems after fifteen years of teaching, it might be time for me to find something new to respond when one student is running down the hallway, saying, “He’s chasing me!” My traditional “It’s physically impossible to chase someone who isn’t running” has been flat-out debunked by those who, supposedly, know better than the rest of us.