Mike McLellan

It is four days until Mother’s Day, and I have been reflecting on my mom’s wisdom. My sainted mother often said, “Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

She meant that if something appeared to be so, there was often something real behind it.

Mom had lots of folk wisdom that had been passed down to her. She passed it to her children.
She was born before the passage of the 19th Amendment, so she did not always have the right to vote. She did have the right to an opinion. Her opinion was that if you smell smoke, there is likely something burning.

When it comes to the political, she was always looking for smoke.

When someone becomes secretive and acts shifty, it is likely that there is something to be secretive about. People rarely look guilty unless they are guilty. Unless, of course, they are neurotic.

I can think of no better example than the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and his famous reply that it all “depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” It turned out that he had a very limited definition of what sexual relations were, too.

When a politician starts to blow smoke, one suspects fire.

That holds for all elected officials. One has to wonder, when the people petition their elected leaders to do or not do something, why those leaders would try to circumvent the will of the people. There are little suspicions and questions.

We have seen at various levels of government how elected officials will incessantly strike up a certain tune, even after the population votes to end the parade. When the leaders do not adhere to the voters’ wishes, we suspect something is on fire.

Not knowing what is on people’s minds, we just see actions and feel the heat.

It happens nationally when a congressman, senator or governor gets caught playing with ethical matches. We wonder what other arson has been going on. Our minds think the worst, while a brief and truthful answer might curb the sense that we are about to witness a conflagration.

We have laws, and when it appears that someone has broken the law, louder denials usually make a person seem more suspect. We figure innocent people do not have to be hostile. It is like former major league baseball pitcher Roger Clemens appearing before a House of Representatives subcommittee. He might have been innocent, but there was so much friction that we smelled smoke.

It billows, it stinks and something seems to be up. But often we do not want to believe that there is a fire. We entrust our representatives with power and imagine they would not misuse it. It sure seems, however, like there is something going on that we cannot see.

When fighting fire, you open things up to the air so you can see the flame. As long as it smolders, hidden in the attic, it is dangerous. People elected to protect us would want everyone to know what is really going on if nothing was cooking — would they not? Otherwise, it just seems like something is smoldering, and it is hard to tell if it is real or imagined.

Certainly, we hope it is imagined. We would not want to get burned.

So when someone wants to hide something, some of us just naturally expect that there is something worth hiding — and we want to know what it is. This is how the National Enquirer stays in business. Some of us are always walking around with a fire extinguisher and are unhappy unless we find something to hose down.

I’ll give you an example. My wife is welcome to see all of my e-mail and cell phone records. There is not much there. I have nothing to hide, but let’s just say that I refused to let her see them. I know what she would think, and it would be natural.

If I protested, the smoke would rise and she would suspect flame. I think she would have a right to suspect it.

Not to stretch the folksy metaphor too far, let’s just say that you are better off not creating too much smoke unless you want people to come running to put you out.

Where there is smoke, there is fire, Mom always said.

• Mike McLellan can be contacted by calling and leaving a message at 830-4201 or e-mailing him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it