Verbal gaffes are nothing new to politics. When you spend the majority of your time speaking to reporters, staffers and constituents, you’re bound to trip over your own words or misspeak on occasion; this mainly equates to an embarrassing feature in one news cycle that is quickly forgotten. Some comments, however, get taken to task – and threaten to sully an entire presidential legacy.

Over a year ago, Barack Obama established a ‘thin red line’ when it came to military intervention in Syria: the use of chemical weapons. As we all learned recently, that red line has been crossed – the details are murky at best as to by whom – and now the Obama administration has a geopolitical quandary on its hands.

As action has yet to occur, and international support for any military involvement has rapidly eroded, the White House is dealing with the fallout from vocalizing a hardline stance on Syria. Like George W. Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner before him, President Obama is now facing an administration-defining misstep. Establishing ultimatums only works when you’re prepared to back them up, and with dwindling approval at home and abroad, he is faced with the possibility of going to war on unverified evidence or looking weak internationally.

While opinions on the facts of the Syrian situation differ from who you speak with, I believe we can all agree on one: launching tomahawk cruise missiles for the sake of saving face is not the correct response.

It remains to be seen what type of action will take place in Syria, but it’s safe to say that President Obama wishes he could have that ‘thin red line’ remark back. Verbal gaffes occur daily from government officials, but when political gamesmanship turns into political backpedaling, those seemingly mindless foot-in-mouth moments can become the black mark on your own entry in the history books.

-Carter Breazeale

Fifty years ago, one of our nation’s greatest leaders marched from the Washington Monument to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered one of the seminal speeches in our history. Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was a generation defining piece of oratory genius, outlining the realities and possibilities of civil rights in the United States.

Half a century later, America is still struggling to realize Dr. King’s dream, but we’re certainly eons from the blight of Jim Crow, bus boycotts and the ‘separate but equal’ mentality that pervaded the cultural attitude of the 1960s. It’s worth assuming that our country may never actualize Reagan’s vision of the shining city on the hill, but constantly striving to set the example for the rest of the globe is a viable and worthy undertaking.

While other countries around the world have doubled-down on restricting rights of certain sects of society – specifically LGBT individuals – state legislatures throughout our nation have taken immense strides to set the global example that there is no precondition on your fundamental rights at a citizen in the United States. They are inalienable, and you can trace recent civil rights court decisions and societal shifts to the words uttered from the Lincoln Memorial steps in 1963.

Like many celebrated historical leaders, Dr. King put himself in an unenviable position during his campaign to change the cultural landscape. Facing death threats, arrests and FBI inquiries as to his past and alleged political leanings, Martin Luther King Jr. continued his crusade to craft a better union. When he was tragically assassinated in 1968, King paid the ultimate sacrifice for the cause he felt absolutely necessary, and we lost one of America’s preeminent voices for change.

When you reflect back on the most pivotal moments in American history, the 1963 March on Washington remains an event that catalyzed a new vision for the United States, and set the tone for the scope of current society.

-Carter Breazeale

Since he came to the Yankees in 2004, Alex Rodriguez has been New York personified. A man as large as the city he represents; a lightning-rod comparable to the spire that adorns the Empire State Building. He of the veritable caravans of cash, the harem of Hollywood starlets, and the inexorable hubris that accompanies them – he is the walking embodiment of unfettered capitalism. And like a Cesarian twist-of-fate, Major League Baseball – the sycophants that supported and promoted this meteoric uprising – staged a sporting coup d’état, and turned their messianic superstar into a sacrificial lamb for the new guard of the steroid era.

Rodriguez was once trumpeted as the Anti-Barry Bonds. The man preordained to truly eclipse Hank Aaron’s homerun total – the most hallowed record in all of sports – and nail shut the door on baseball’s sordid affair with pharmaceuticals that pervaded the previous two decades.

“Say what you wanted about his braggadocio or his tenuous relationship with the media, at least he’s clean,” they said. “We can deal with the distractions, as long as they’re supplemented with his staggering production,” they said.

And then a 2009 Sports Illustrated report surfaced, alleging positive tests for steroids when he was with the Texas Rangers in 2003, and the carefully crafted façade that was Alex Rodriguez began to crumble. He was not superhuman after all: in fact, he was just as human as any of us; susceptible to the temptations and pressures that accompany performing under constant scrutiny and an all-encompassing spotlight.

With MLB’s latest indictment of A-Rod in the Biogenesis scandal – and the 211-game suspension that comes with it – the Rodriguez cult of personality that baseball’s top brass and power brokers helped create became little more than a propaganda poster for everything immoral in professional sports. A signpost declaring ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’

At the end of the day, Commissioner Bud Selig had another decoration for his cheaters mantelpiece, and Major League Baseball could wash their tainted hands of the latest indignity that brought attention to the sport for all the wrong reasons.

But baseball fans don’t forget. They didn’t forget the sport’s resurgence in popularity on the artificially-enhanced backs of Bonds, McGwire and Sosa amidst their homerun chase in the late-nineties, and they certainly didn’t forget the Lilliputian slings of contempt launched to take down Bonds when the smoke and mirrors disappeared. Baseball cultivated a culture of herculean giants launching balls into the ionosphere, and then wiped them out once the shift in popular opinion dictated an immediate shift in accepted policy.

Perhaps that’s the saddest aspect of baseball’s steroid saga: that there are no heroes. There were no trailblazers looking to clean up the sport from day-one: only individuals beholden to perception and convenience. Alex Rodriguez fell on the sword when a circular firing squad was more in order: directed at the crooks that sit in the luxury suites and turned a blind-eye to the poisonous track in which the sport was headed when it benefited them, and chopped the head off the snake when it finally didn’t. There’s money to be made in lies and duplicity, and the fact of the matter is Major League Baseball has not solved the PEDs puzzle, they’ve merely provided a whipping boy while they recuse themselves from any responsibility.

-Carter Breazeale

On the Fourth of July the first arrest was captured via a pair of Google Glasses, which sparks a thought-provoking debate as to the positives and negatives of a camera-driven culture. Are point-of-view cameras a helpful crime-deterrent and accountability measure, or an intrusive new aspect of reality that violates our right to privacy?

Throughout literary history, authors have imagined what life would be like in the distant future. Orwell assured us of Big Brother and an existence of non-stop government surveillance. Wells wrote of extraterrestrial warfare and time-travel. McCarthy described a grey, dystopian landscape with toxic air and hordes of murderous brigands.

With the recent Edward Snowden/NSA fiasco, 1984 seems to be closest to the pin, but none of the aforementioned novelists have accurately portrayed a futuristic civilization. The forthcoming retail release of Google Glass, however, may provide more ammunition to critics who claim society is becoming increasingly Orwellian.

Ethics aside, I foresee Google Glass having an interesting impact on the field of journalism, where reporting can now be completely inconspicuous and capture events as they transpire, without the altered behavior that can occur in the presence of news cameras. Objectivity should be the aim of every reporter, and the concealed nature of Google Glass provides an unadulterated view of newsworthy happenings. Videos can then be immediately shared or uploaded online, adding another component to the 24-hour Internet news cycle.

But the conspiracy-theorists do have a valid point, as there’s something incredibly disconcerting about folks walking around with literal cameras strapped to their faces. Arguments abound about the legality and ethicality of non-descript video rolling on the public – such as red light cameras, drone surveillance and the like – so it begs the question: where’s the line? Will Google Glasses or any other point-of-view recordings become utilized in law enforcement tactics? Will third-party face-filmed video become admissible evidence in court? These questions and many others only serve to reinforce the tinfoil hat-clad that we are indeed becoming characters in a George Orwell novel.

So how do you feel about the prospect of being filmed unbeknownst to your knowledge, without written consent? What effect do you think Google Glass will have on society?

-Carter Breazeale

It’s hard to believe we’re over halfway through 2013 already, and it’s now time for fireworks, cold drinks and a gluttonous level of barbeque consumption.

We will be out of the office on Thursday, but back at it again on Friday. We hope that everyone has a fun and safe Fourth of July!