Lose your glasses and, depending on the prescription, to a degree you’ll lose grip on the world. As vision narrows and surroundings begin to blur, grown men are reduced to bumbling children, grasping for their glasses and a fixed point to hold onto. It’s pretty much the worst.
The seriously four-eyed know this fear, and can more fully understand the abuse that the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs recently endured when Montana Republican congressman-elect Greg Gianforte body slammed the reporter, beat his face, and perhaps worst of all, broke his glasses.
“What kind of a wuss files charges over broken glasses?” radio host Derek Hunter tweeted. The suggestion seems to be that there’s something beta-male about calling the police when you’re physically assaulted, with damage to your property and your ability to navigate the world.
And sure, some people will maintain that Jacobs should’ve just taken the punch like a man. The reporter is the snowflake here, they’ll say — not the guy who wants to be in Congress, yet snapped at a perfectly mundane and pertinent political question.
I’m a journalist who wears glasses and I’ve taken plenty of punches. I boxed in high school just long enough at the DeKalb County Boxing Club to figure out that getting hit in the head can be disorienting. And I imagine getting hit in the head unexpectedly and getting your glasses knocked off is even worse.
Considering the circumstances, I think Jacobs did pretty well for himself. To hit back would’ve been out of bounds. He was there to report, not to get into fistfights with the candidates. Besides, even if the reporter had thrown a blind haymaker, he probably would’ve missed without glasses.
Besides, to let something like this slip by neglecting to press charges would have been a disservice to the public.
The response inside the beltway has been too cute by half. A GoFundMe campaign has raised thousands of dollars, enough to fix Jacobs eyes with Lasik if he really wanted. (To his credit, he declined the cash.) And outside of his control, Warby Parker has capitalized on his viral misfortune by offering to provide him with a new pair of glasses.
Shattered spectacles and ridiculous hysteria aside, Jacobs has achieved clarity.
Though temporarily blinded, the journalist put on public record the fact that Gianforte would rather lash out than answer a simple question. As a result, every Big Sky Country voter now knows that their representative never learned to control his emotions.
And I can’t speak for Jacobs, but maybe his temporary blindness is a small price to pay to illustrate something like that for everyone.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
