I was alerted to something one of our local politicians said in a story in the Syracuse Post Standard by reading the blog of a new friend of mine, Josh Shear.

Like Josh, I can't believe a politician has the nerve to blame the voters for his poor performance, and I believe he should just be glad that he ended up winning the election in the first place. And, as someone else he quoted in his blog, Sean Kurst, said, our local politician missed the point.

Who remember when Congress changed hands back in 1994? President Clinton came out and said, "I must certainly bear my share of responsibility, and I accept that." And he did, leading to one of the highest approval ratings of any outgoing president in history. That's really the way one should evaluate leaders, real or perceived, by how others respond to them after some adversity. This particular politician, whose name I haven't mentioned but can be learned by looking at the links above, hopefully will learn this lesson quickly because, from what I understand, his father, a former local politician himself, never such a public mistake.