Right decision

I hope John Key won't cop any silly flak for saying that he won't attend a service for the two soldiers just killed in Afghanistan because he has a prior commitment to watch his son play baseball. Put like that, it seems harsh; but he has done the right thing. Max Key is in the New Zealand under-17 team scheduled to play in an American tournament, and what parent wouldn't want to be there for their kid? It's no insult to the men who died. Prime ministers are supposed to lend their status to all sorts of state occasions and fair enough, but they are fathers and mothers too. Key puts it well when he says 'It's a very, very difficult decision. I have got to let somebody down. But my son makes huge sacrifices for me and my job and in the final analysis I thought it was the right thing to do to go and support him.' It is. But it's a commentary on what we expect of our politicians that he even had to say this.