Do we, American citizens, have the right to criticize our public officials, community leaders or anyone else for this matter? That is, if they make mistakes, allow gaffes to slip into their statements, do unethical things, take wrong decisions or if we simply disagree with what they are doing or saying? The answer seems to be very simple: its equivocal "yes". As to the public officials, I say we have an obligation to scrutinize and judge their moves (Biblical "don't judge" is not applicable here!). And to express our honest - and hopefully unbiased - stance in this regard.
Do they - the officials and the leaders - have the right to defend themselves and comment on our critique in return? Hell yes! They are American citizen too. They most definitely have their own rights the same as we do, both the public and the media (and they do have the right to make mistakes - provided the number of those is rather limited). Besides, lets keep in mind they have more responsibilities, more authority, more power. This includes the responsibility for a balanced - and hopefully unbiased - response to the public (or media) criticism, They are open to the public eyes - not an easy job and not a trivial responsibility. But it comes with the territory. If one could not deal with that - there are quite a few options available. Don't go into politics in the first place. Resign if you are already there and the pressure is too high. Be in control of the situation (seems easy enough since you have more information, more authority and more power). Use humor, including self-directed one (a very good example of properly handling his mistake was President Obama's reaction to his inappropriate wording regarding Cambridge police in 2009 when he invited both parties for a beer). The opportunities are endless. The public figures just should not fall as low as tagging their critics with nasty stickers.
Jen Psaki from State Department is not without certain number of gaffes in her press conferences. I am not going to list them here - anyone could find some on their own. What angers me is that when Bill O'Reilly from Fox News criticized her for avoiding to provide an answer to a question by James Rosen, he was immediately labeled sexist by Psaki's second-in-command Marie Hart - based not on the meaning of O'Reilly's remark but on a sole fact that Psaki is a female. Mr. O'Reilly is definitely not the last authority on merits but his remarks as a Cable News host should not be answered with tagging a one-dimensional sticker.
Here is another frequent example of pinning an unfair label. Some of President Obama's supporters give him a disservice by naming a "racist" anyone who comes up with a negative comment about the man.
We all know how much time all kind of cards are being played in media articles and broadcasts, twits, Facebook entries and the like when there is no real counter-argument to some critique - maybe not always valid but deserving a decent conversation nevertheless. Race card. Gender card. Sexual orientation card. The list goes on and on. Amazingly, these cards are most frequently used by the same people who supposedly push for political correctness. Come on, guys and gals!
Can we, the American public, be able and feel free to express some negative comment about a public official or another noticeable figure who happens to be a woman, an African American, gay, Muslim or Asian - and not being slammed with a vile label of sexist, racist, homophobic, islamophobic or anti-Asian?
Can we please concentrate on what public officials and other prominent figures of whatever origin and sexual orientation do or say (or maybe don't do when we think they should) and not simply write-off and dismiss as biased any critical remark about them if these figures belong to one of the aforementioned groups - or any other group for that matter? Like WASPS, who don't want to play the whipping boys (or girls) either.
