I have to watch myself, I admit, when it comes to having too many preconceived expectations.

Being a fairly large cynic when it comes to politicians, it is easy to expect the worst of them.

That clouds my judgment sometimes, as sometimes my knee jerk reaction is in play.

I try and watch this, and apply a certain measure of common sense and reason, and I think I succeed more than not, but even I have my moments.

That said, sometimes my cynical expectations are fully met and justified.  While that is affirming, it is also dangerous and I try not to take too much out of it.

Where should one draw the line I sometimes wonder?  No clue.

I try to draw myself back and merely debate and discuss the facts, but even then I still have the nagging doubts.

This happens outside the political blogging arena too of course, and in many ways it is harder to contend with there.

And if anything dealing with the expectations of other people is twice and dangerous.  For as I contend with my expectations, others apply theirs on me, and I have to then worry about meeting them or not, and suffering their reactions.

The missing word is realistic.  If I maintain realistic expectations, and others have similarly realistic expectations of me, then the odds are that there will be less misunderstanding and less disappointment…and less chance in my blogging that I might have to eat crow and retract a story or comment.

So in the next 4 years of the Obama administration, and the Democrat controlled expansion of government, I have to try and remember that it is fine to be cynical as long as I address the facts as they stand.  The stimulus bill continues to be a real challange.

Honestly, I have to admit that it will be very hard, as they are moving the country in a direction I disagree with, and my instincts are to distrust their decisions, even when present in the most altruistic fashion.

I have a lot of history reinforcing that belief.

Add to that my normal distrust of politicians and you have the recipe for difficulty.

I share this because it bothered me that I was recently accused of sloppiness even after taken what I felt were reasonable precautions regarding accuracy of a report.

In that case, my expectations were indeed in play, as I felt the story was plausible.  I still do in fact.  That belief was based on a lot of experience, but even so I reigned in my knee and paid attention to the troubling aspects of the story.  In fact, I reported the story, and my blogging had more to do with why I felt it plausible then it did with the exact story itself.

So even if the story is a hoax, I still believe my treatment was balanced and fair, and far more so than most media outlets. 

I will continue to evaluate my writing under those standards.

LSU