Rodent Regatta

People generally are intrigued when smart people fail. Whether a smart person has a public meltdown (e.g. Richard Nixon) or a group of smart people experience a disaster (e.g. NASA and the Challenger explosion), the media and the public push and shove to witness the outcome.

We value life in this country – or once we did. With the shuttle Columbia’s break-up this morning, we have apparently lost seven smart people. On Thursday, we lost four smart people in a Blackhawk helicopter crash in Afghanistan. They got ”page 3” coverage.

Why does the shuttle Columbia warrent wall-to-wall media coverage, but the loss of four of our guys in the war on terrorism gets lost in the shuffle? It’s because the US space program has long been a beacon of prowess – an ability to do something that no other country in the world can do. Our smart people got us to the moon and back. We have always been captivated by that accomplishment and the series of steps that led to it.

Now, we’ve experienced a tragic failure trying to return the shuttle to Earth. We will mourn with others. We will listen to the pundits guess and assume and hypothesize about what might have happened. We will watch as smart people are questioned unmercifully by talking heads behaving as if they know and knew much better how to prevent a disaster.

In the end we’ll continue to be a people who’d rather see and second guess a train wreck than to see the beauty in each life we come in contact with. It’s the curse of a smart people.

• * * UPDATE * * * Glenn Reynolds has posted a link to Ronald Reagan’s speech about the Challenger disaster. Here’s just one part of it that chokes you up:

  I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: ”Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.”

  Ronald Reagan
  January 28, 1986