There was a really good quotation from someone in “this post at WorldMagBlog”:http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/014355.html that I like a lot (the post was made by someone with my first name, but it wasn’t me! The comment was made at 9:29am yesterday.):
The quotation is from Dorothy Sayers’ “The Lost Tools of Learning”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=davidsworldva-20&creative=9325&camp=1789&link_code=ur2&path=tg/detail/-/B0007FRAVK/qid=1114706741/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1?v=glance%26s=books (which unfortunately appears to be out of print):
Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?
I see this in politics at all levels all the time, it’s one of the reasons I got annoyed with politics and stopped paying much attention. I get annoyed with immaturity at this level. On the other hand, it makes good speakers all that much more easy to appreciate!