We all have hearts, therefore we all feel ourselves the hurt that Rundle felt in so much greater degree at these insults. Our hearts do not produce only positive feelings like empathy. When we care, the more hurtful we can be. We can feel the exasperation that Laeser and The First Laddie felt, although nothing excuses the public nature of their humiliation of Rundle.
We all have brains which create reason which is indespensable to responsibility which is needed to doing our life's work well. When we don't do our work well because we are irresponsible, others--our bosses, our colleagues, our loved ones--will get exasperated. We know that because we can reason with our brains. And that is what is so inexcusable about Rundle.
She knows (brain+reason=awareness) that:
1. She shouldn't have a "knowledge gap."
2. She should have known that Howard Marbury was one of her chiefs of County Court and not a cop.
3. & etc.
She knows these things. And so it is another part of her character that she willfully chooses not to know. She could educate herself on the law. Instead she takes the lazy way out of relying on her "experts."
She would have known who the hell Howard Marbury was if she had cared. I-f s-h-e h-a-d
c-a-r-e-d. She doesn't.
She doesn't care enough to learn as part of, like, her job who her assistant chief of county court is. She doesn't even care enough about the job that she really holds, that of politician, to avoid the embarrassment of a Detective Marbury Incident. How hard would that have been? So you don't care enough naturally to know who your assistant chief is. Fine. Politicians, that is politicians who use their reasoning power to do their jobs responsibly, study people's names--often with their photographs--precisely to avoid making a fool of themselves, no matter how indifferent they may be to the real work they're supposed to be doing.
No, no, no, Rundle does not get a pass on her actions which result in her humiliation. She has humiliated herself.
The setting:
Rundle's office, two years ago. Jose Arrojo and I are briefing the chief law enforcement officer of Miami-Dade County on a sensitive, high-publicity murder investigation: A man murdered his wife and dumped her body in the ocean. Arrojo and I take turns telling her the facts, one of us speaking, the other adding.
Suddenly, there is a light.
Through those eyes made rheumy by alcohol, from that brain that stubbornly persists in sending calls to action to those vocal chords, suddenly there is a look of knowing in that unknowing face, a self-satisfied half smile confirms it, and she says,
"Ahh, I get it, it's like the Steve Pederson case."
-David Ranck
