Recently I have been listening to the latest season of Embedded. Embedded is a podcast series that initially began by digging deep on a single news story. It has since evolved into following a subject closely and doing an entire season based on that. For example, prior to this season, they did an entire season on Trump Stories. Most recently, the season was based on Mitch McConnell.
There were five episodes and in each one they told one aspect of McConnell that when done left me angered. For example, in the first one, they focused on McConnell’s desire to win at all costs (titled: Win this Thing). We often like to see our political leaders are either good or bad; Obama was good, Trump is bad. When the reality is there is a lot more nuance in between that requires a lot of processing power to understand and sort. For this reason, we often lean towards the easy, the good vs. bad, or a talking head telling us which is which (fast-food of news).
If we continue with the food-theme, I would like to think of myself as a food-aware home chef. Meaning that while I may not spend weeks or months in the front lines of journalism, I do look for various sources of news, digest them and then build my own opinion. That is what embedded was, one of the many ingredients I use to cook my own opinion.
As the season progressed, so did my perspective on McConnell. My anger and appreciation for his winning mentality continued to divert. On the one hand, I was learning about a person whom you could easily describe with not-so flattering language, on the other, he was right, unless you win, you cannot effect change. It’s the oldest conundrum in the world, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I, as a by-stander and listener, had much in my head about what I would say to the Republican leader if I ever met him. I would give him a piece of my mind, of course. Suddenly, my time came… not for me to talk to him myself, but the next best thing… for the hosts of the show that was guiding my opinion of the subject to talk to him.
In the final episode, after 4 shows where embedded must have spent hundreds of hours researching the subject, getting ready to bring it home, what happened? Nothing. A big fat nothing. The hosts of the show interviewed McConnell and they got McConnell’d. There wasn’t even a witty comeback to appease our egos. Nothing.
Which leads me to wonder, if a professional chef, one with years of preparation, and even a team to support him/her, cannot make a meaningful meal out of a fish like McConnell? What chances does a home chef like myself have? What chances do the rest of the fast-food eating population have?
The answer is a Mac-Connell ๐
