Wishing you could un-say a word

Elephants never forget.

By that standard, neither do wives, reporters or politicians. (Putting it into a political context -- Donkeys don’t forget either.)

My friend Rich Galen, a political strategist and three-times a week blogger at mullings.com, reminded me of a point counterpoint to current events.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is being taken to task for referring to the U.S. House as a “plantation.” While the presidential candida…. er, Senator was using the word to make political points at a MLK Day rally, she has a point. From the viewpoint of the political party in the minority, the House has always been run in a top down, heavy handed manner. It had been like that for 40 years of Democrat control before the Republican Revolution in 1994. A decade later the Dems are just noticing.

But the same language was used by revolution leader and later Speaker Newt Gingrich in a Washington Post article Oct. 20, 1994. As Galen notes:

That was “a couple of weeks ahead of the Republican tsunami in the US House in the mid-term election of that year). “Newt was still House Republican Whip and, talking to a reporter about how differently House Democrats looked at him as opposed to how they viewed House Republican Leader, Bob Michel, said:

"’I'm much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion.’"

It was also in that same mid-January week that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagen vowed to remake his town “a Chocolate City.”

While both comments drew cheers and applause from those in attendance, the reaction from observers, commentators and news coverage was critical – with some saying that together they again lost the South for the Democrats.

Both speakers tried mitigation, trying to explain what they meant. That’s a classic strategy, but in doing this you have to repeat the mistake and extend the coverage by another day or more.

Better than trying to un-say a word is, of course, leaving it unsaid. You address a variety of audiences – friends, family, customers, coworkers, competitors, supporters and critics. Comments made in the locker room, the board room or away from the office don’t always translate well when they are quoted on the evening news.

We know you can’t un-say a word. But you can think twice about saying something that will – or can be – overheard by other people.