Keller @ Large: Voters Must Stop Punishing Politicians For Telling The Truth

BOSTON (CBS) - When you cover politics for a living, you spend a lot of time calling out politicians over their judgement. That's our job. But maybe there's room once in a while to call out another group that plays a role in our political failures - the voters.

Here's a case in point:

By now you've probably heard about the unusually-public food fight between President Trump and Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who compared the president the other day to a child at a day care center and suggested he might be on his way to starting World War III. In an interview, Corker was asked if his recent decision not to seek re-election next year had liberated him to be candid about Trump, and the senator said "Obviously... if I'm running in a Republican primary...you end up being constrained."

So let me get this straight - the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee believes that the President of the United States, the leader of his own party, is so childish and reckless he might plunge us into global warfare - and yet he feels constrained by his own constituents from warning the public about it?

Not exactly a profile in courage, but note that he believes many of those voters wouldn't tolerate him speaking out.

Are you potentially one of those voters, ready to punish a pol for telling what he believes to be the truth about such incredibly important public matters?

If so, I hope you're not also one of those voters always complaining about two-faced pols who don't have the guts to give it to you straight.

You can't have it both ways. And if truth is the solution, then anyone - pol or voter - who obstructs it is part of the problem.

Talk back to me through email at keller@wbztv.com, or use Twitter, @kelleratlarge.