Tony Bennet has generally projected a "take it or leave it" attitude that falls just short of "I do not suffer you fools gladly." So it's interesting that he might have some regrets for his approach:
Indiana's state schools superintendent says he has fences to mend following his push for sweeping education overhauls that legislators approved this year.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said during a Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce forum on Tuesday that he understands the changes he has advocated make many teachers and other uncomfortable.
Bennett says it is unfortunate that many great teachers and schools have felt lumped in with what he called "chronic underperformers," The Herald-Times reported.
We run into this type -- shall we call it an "abrupt personality? -- out here in the private sector quite often, but those in the political arena quickly learn the benefits of the glad-handing schmoozer's approach. Perhaps because they are so rare among public officials, these wascally firebrands can seem refreshingly honest and direct at first. But the drawbacks of such an approach soon become all too obvious. I'm thinking of someone like Liz Brown on the Fort Wayne City Council. It becomes difficult at some point to figure out how much of the opposition to her is based on her ideas and how much is just a reaction to her personality.
"Fences to mend" is an interesting expression. It suggests restoring relations with someone one has perhaps unwisely antagonized. But fences are made to separate. Those who have jumped the fence, so to speak, have invaded someone else's personal sphere, and offering to mend it is to acknowledge the breach and promise to get back in one's own space. "Good fences make good neighbors" as the saying goes and Robert Frost elaborated on, not, alas, in a positive way:
| Before I built a wall I'd ask to know | |
| What I was walling in or walling out, | |
| And to whom I was like to give offence. | |
| Something there is that doesn't love a wall, |
In poetry and literature, we can lament the need for fences and walls. Out here in the world, they come in kind of handy.
