It's time minister's private comments were left behind

"Oh my God, did you hear what Lisa Raitt said?"

This is said in a breathless, wide-eyed way followed by tittering that you might hear in a junior high washroom, or in a few sad corners of the Ottawa press gallery.

Yes the minister said that isotopes are a politically sexy issue because they involve radioactive leaks and cancer.

Beat me with a stick if you want, but yes when it comes to politics and the media Raitt is right.

Health issues are always sexy to the media, which is why a study about the health benefits of oatmeal will lead the news ahead of the latest Third World natural disaster as long as casualties are under, say, 300 people and there is no dramatic footage to show on TV.

But if there is good footage, look out. As many of my journalist friends would say, if it bleeds it leads. Lucky for them they just haven't had the bad fortune of being accidentally recorded when they say these things.

All I know is that if I was secretly tape recorded in a bad moment, and it was subsequently reported without any context, I may very well have to go live in a cave for 20 or 30 years.

In the case of minister Raitt the context is that she is a nice, decent and smart person who was having a private chat with an aide about the media interest in this kind of story, and how she was looking forward to tackling the issue.

Compassion

Based on this single comment, and against the evidence of her entire life, the suggestion is that she somehow lacks compassion for people who are battling cancer. Yeesh, if only we held ourselves to the same standards that we hold everyone else to.

Ordinary hypocrisy is one thing. Then there is that whole class of people who constantly scan the horizon for some issue to be outraged by.

We all know these gloomy thin-lipped people. Every verbal misstep, no matter how well intended, is interpreted to mean the worst that it could mean. Every joke is an outrage.

These joyless people are the black holes of humanity. No warmth or light escapes their dark centre.

Mostly they hang out around human rights commissions, go into politics, head off to journalism school or, I am sad to say, are regular but not popular members of their church. They are the perpetually incensed. Thank goodness this bitter remnant makes up a very small but inordinately depressing part of the population.

There is a bright side to all of this. I have discovered that I am not alone in saying things privately that I wouldn't say publicly. In fact I am told by a leading science guy that just over 33 million Canadians are guilty of the same horrid behaviour.

That said it's still fun to pretend that we never admit things to a friend behind closed doors that we would never say to the media. Goodness knows that we never crab about our friends the way our stupid friends crab about us!

Seriously though, if you disagree with the essence of this extraordinarily sexy column please know that I will think bad thoughts about you. But that's just the way I am.