Potential Squandered -OR- Worry About It A Little Bit. But That's All.

Quick. You are a prominent member of your community. Your next-door neighbor gets arrested for skullduggery and it is revealed that he has been under audio/video surveillance for at least two years. Among the 100 pages of charges there are any number of references to unidentified prominent citizen #'s 1-36 (inclusive)

You have had conversations with the neighbor. You are a prominent citizen. You KNOW somebody has audio/video documentation of your conversations with your next door neighbor. VERBATIM! The press arrives (don't they always?) and asks you to DETAIL your conversations with said neighbor. The Prosecution has released transcripts of some of the juicy bits while promising a full release soon. How soon? Whenever they decided to do it, but not before.

What would you do? You are confident you didn't say anything that drags you into the skullduggery, but you don't remember every word said, verbatim. You don't know how your conversations play against the others in the evidence. You are completely unaware of the context of skullduggery or how it might relate to your conversations.

Since the audio/video evidence is a verbatim record, why would you say anything that might later be shown to be not EXACTLY what you said? Because the press will say your silence is absolute proof that you're hiding something? Because your political enemies will make political hay? Because the 24/7/365 noise machines will tap their vast resources to find willing assholes to engage in stupid wild-ass guessing and speculations over what may or may not come out on the recordings?

Perspective is reality folks. We draw parallels to actions and activities of the past. Unless you say there is no there...there. Unless you know for certain that nobody brought your name into this in ways you neither approved or knew...

RELEASE THE FUCKING TAPES ALREADY! Let the feces hit the air mover. End the fucking "what if" brigade. Nobody cares what they think will happen.

Oh, and by the way, your next-door neighbor is a full-blown narcissist who's thrilled to be the center of attention. He hasn't said word one about the case against him. He's the one who was arrested. He's the one who was involved in ALL of the conversations yet nobody is allowed close enough to ask him any questions.

Oh yeah, and while this circus is playing out in the side tent, the world around us all is imploding.

YMMV.