July Fourth is about Oakhill, too

Pardon me — on this day of celebration and independence — for wanting to take one last volley at explaining why I care about Oakhill Earthquake 2010.

And actually, if I write these next 15 or so paragraphs properly, it’ll conveniently come back to independence and America, as it should, on this important day.

We are at a loss of critical leadership in America at this time — from Washington to Oakhill.

We have leadership, but it comes without the amount of purity we once treasured.

To be sure, even our historic public and private leaders — Washington, Franklin, Roosevelt, Truman, Morgan, Carnegie, Ford, to name a few — were leaders who had faults. But the level to which their leadership amassed public good surpassed their individual challenges.

Today, it’s less inspiring.

I generally like President Obama, but I become more concerned by the day.

When he salutes stimulus tax dollars that sustain more government jobs and do not generate as many private-sector jobs, I’m uninspired. And when he drops by to honor a major company effort and salute himself and his other political leaders and the $20 million they generated, but undersells the $650 million from the company, I’m uninspired.

Enron and British Petroleum hardly evoke the lasting images of the Ford Motor Co. and U.S. Steel.

So as I was saying, Oakhill ...

The Vindicator’s been knocked by some county workers for holding on to the news that Oakhill was among the very, very few government offices between here and Ottawa to close.

“Let go.” “Come on.”

In fact, on Thursday, I was “tablacked,” if you will.

County Administrator George Tablack left a two-minute-long voicemail, which included him chiding us for hanging onto this story and not pursuing another story he deemed more important. He complained reporter Pete Milliken’s work contained a fact error. He threatened legal action. And, the kicker: He said The Vindicator was creating a poor impression of things at the county.

Here are a couple general rules I’ve been taught over the years:

If mad, don’t leave a long, whiney voicemail. Leave a short message announcing your concern and leave a phone number. That did not happen with Tablack. My machine logged his home number. I called, and George asked if he could call back. And there’s been no callback.

Do not hyperbolize. Milliken’s “error” was a fact attributed to Anthony Traficanti, who did not call claiming he was misquoted. Also, don’t threaten legal action. Most legal action I’ve been part of, I was never forewarned. Most legal action I’ve been threatened with has never happened.

Shifting to another story, as suggested by Tablack, is what too many of us have done for years.

We’ve let go in America.

You see it when government jobs are the leading “new employment” sector.

You see it when government pensions and health- care plans for public servants are healthier than private workers.

We let it happen.

Tablack was correct at one point in his message: There are more-important things to report. There are.

But we – as citizens and as newspapers – have fallen for that too many times.

We get hot over something. We wait for an answer. We allow officials to not explain what the public deems bad decisions. Then we move on to something else.

I’m not ready for that yet.

America was launched when citizens finally fought back.

That civic courage — that we can be better tomorrow than we are right now — is sorely needed today when we are surrounded by government officials who look out most for themselves and their jobs.