Does anyone really have all the 'right stuff'?

You don't have to be Mike Wallace to know that if an astronaut drives 900 miles while wearing a diaper, with the apparent intent to attack a woman she felt was her rival for another astronaut's affections, it qualifies as news.

It qualifies on so many levels you could build a journalism textbook around it. But the most convincing of these levels involves the woman's stature as an American astronaut, a position on a unique pedestal.

These are the modern-day Magellans — or they would be if Ferdinand had done his exploring while cooped up in a confined capsule traveling thousands of miles per hour for days on end. They are people who have been tested and found to have "the right stuff." They are supposed to be a notch above everyone else, which qualifies them to fly thousands of notches above everyone else, exploring unearthly scenes with nerves of steel.

And now that one of them apparently has wigged out, exhibiting the wrong stuff in a dramatic and absurd fashion, we can add astronauts to the heap that already includes presidents, congressmen, FBI and CIA agents, members of the clergy, ballplayers and other former heroes. No one, it seems is worthy of veneration.

Which would be an all-too-easy but wrong way to view this story.

And make no mistake, the news business is a two-way street. Your responsibility involves how you interpret the events of the day.

On the first page of his book, "Seeing Through Cynicism: A Reconsideration of the Power of Suspicion," author Dick Keyes recalls a time when one of his students asked, "Can you read the newspapers, watch television and generally try to keep informed about what is going on in the world — without becoming cynical?"

It's a good question. In response, he argues that cynicism is indeed a constant pull, but we should not let it control us, even though it seems to be "the default setting for many conversations" and is seen by many as a necessary filter to keep from getting duped.

The irony is that the space program, of all public institutions, embodies the opposite of cynicism. For centuries, mankind had dreamed of going to the moon, but only people with a healthy sense of belief and optimism actually could do it.

A nation that grabs hold of cynicism, on the other hand, eventually will lose respect for the democratic process, civil discourse and public institutions. It will replace veneration with sarcasm. It will wallow in negativity.