I’ve been dwelling more and more on Barack Obama‘s failure to stand up and be the new FDR or Lyndon Johnson, and yet I felt a surge of hopeful-positive when I saw him on the tube yesterday. Illogical, but my heart wanted what it wanted. Our natural inclination is to give people who’ve let us down another chance. It’s built into our genes to reconsider, and we’re taught to do this by the metaphor of waking up every day and taking a shower, washing off the crud. Don’t be foolish and watch out for the b.s., but always refresh the page.

Which is why I believe that the worst people on the planet, apart from serial killers and child molesters and genocide perpetrators, are those who refuse to refresh their attitudes — who wake up and say, “I remember what happened yesterday or last week or ten years ago, and I will hold onto that memory for the rest of my life. I know things by their right name, and you won’t fool or wound or disappointment me again…rowwrrrr.” We all know that people tend not to change after a certain age and that abusers are chronics and vice versa, but you have to give people a chance to redeem themselves regardless. It’s cowardly — the philosophy of Ebenezer Scrooge — to live in a state of over-protectment.

Have I been guilty of this? Am I guilty of this on a daily basis? Yes. But at least I’m admitting it.