The CBS evening news opened one day last week with anchor Scott Pelley saying words to this effect: “There’s something the Obama Administration didn’t want you to know.” What he was referring to was a mistakenly de-classified document that became public that said the North Koreans might have the capability to put a small nuclear warhead on a missile and hit the U.S. with it. Up to this point we have been told that the North Koreans were no where near being able to deliver such a nuclear strike.

Me, I’ve been suffering from Rodney Dangerfield syndome for years, so I wasn’t one bit surprised to hear that there are things my government doesn’t want me to know; things elected officials don’t trust me with knowing. Simply stated, I don’t get no respect as John Q. Public. I get no regard. I have no civic dignity ... not one ounce of it.

It’s funny when some of our highly positioned movers and shakers get caught telling the truth. It doesn’t matter if it’s Mitt Romney last year calling me a hopelessly dependent leech as part of the 47 percent of leeches in this country he said are dependent on the government, or Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky recently getting caught along with some of his staff in planning to use actress Ashley Judd’s depression problems against her had she run against McConnell in the next election.

As soon as these guys are caught telling the truth they’re screaming, “Foul! No fair! You can’t tape me being honest! Somebody’s going to jail for not playing fair! This stuff can’t get out to the masses! It wasn’t meant for them!”

A few years ago I had an insider tell me something in a candid moment that I have never forgotten. It involved a local political mess and I was asking questions about it and this guy essentially said this: “If you were privy to what’s going on behind the scenes then you’d better understand things.” Well, duh!

Therein lies the point exactly. Me, I get no respect. I got no civic dignity. I’m on the outside looking in. Unless somebody blows a whistle, mistakenly de-classifies some document, secretly or illegally tapes a meeting, or something downright miraculous or stupid happens, I can expect to have Rodney Dangerfield syndrome until my dying day.

I’ve pretty much come to accept the fact that I’ll never have any civic dignity due to being what I am — you know, an average citizen — but it still irks me a little that I had to take such subjects as civics and government in junior and high schools. Those books we read in class back then gave me the idea that I’d have a part in shaping this country; that I’d be a, well, partner. Now I find that I got no respect; I can’t be trusted with the truth because I have no status; and worst of all, the civic lessons I’m getting late in life are a lot tougher than those I got tested on in class way back when.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.